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A 


FEW DAYS IN ATHENS, 


BEING 


THE TRANSLATION 


OF 


A GREEK MANUSCRIPT 


DISCOVERED IN HERCULANEUM. 


PART L 





BY FRANCES WRIGHT, *' 

AUTHOR OF “ VIEWS OF SOCIETY AND MANNERS IN AMERICA.” 


/ ' • 

“ joining bliss to virtue, the glad ease 

Of Epicurus, seldom understood.” 

Thomson’s Liberty. 



REPUBLISHED FROM THE ORIGINAL LONDON EDITION. 


NEW YORK; 

G. W. & A. J. MAT SELL, No. 94 Chatham St. 

18 35. 





t 


The head of Epicurus, on the frontispiece, is copied from a portrait 
given in the sixth volume of the “ Historic Gallery,” and is believed to 
be authentic. 







TO 


JEREMY BENTHAM, 

AS A TESTIMONY 

OF 

HER ADMIRATION OF HIS ENLIGHTENED SENTIMENTS, 
USEFUL LABOURS, 

AND ACTIVE PHILANTHROPY, 

AND OF 

HER GRATITUDE FOR HIS FRIENDSHIP, 

THIS WORK 

IS 

RESPECTFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY 
INSCRIBED, BY 

FRANCES WRIGHT. 

London , 

March 12th, 1822. 




4 




• » 




TO THE READER. 


That 1 may not obtain credit for more learning than I possess, I beg 
to acknowledge the assistance I have received in my version of the curi- 
ous relict of antiquity now offered to the public from the beautiful Italian 
MSS. of the erudite Professor of Greek in the university of * * * * *. 
I hesitate to designate more clearly the illustrious Hellenist whose la- 
bours have brought to light this curious fragment. Since the establish- 
ment of the saintly domination of the Vandals throughout the territo- 
ries of the rebellious and heterodox Italy, and particularly in consequence 
of the ordonnance of his most orthodox, most legitimate, and most Aus- 
trian Majesty, bearing that his dominions being in want of good subjects, 
Ills colleges are forbidden to send forth good scholars,* it lias become ne- 
cessary for the gownsmen of the classic peninsula to banish all profane 
learning from their lectures and their libraries, and to evince a holy ab- 
horrence of the sciences and arts which they erst professed. The list of 
the class books now employed in the transalpine schools is exceedingly 
curious ; I regret that I have mislaid the one lately supplied to me by an 
illustrious Italian exile. My memory recals to me only that in the school 
of rhetoric, the orations of Cicero are superseded by those of the Mar- 
quis of Londonderry, and the philippics of Demosthenes by those of M. 
dc Peyronnet ; that the professors of history have banished the decades of 
Livy for the martyrs of Mons. de Chateaubriand ; and that the students 
of Greek, in place of the Odes of Pindar, and the retreat of the ten thou- 
sand from Cunaxa, construe the hexameters of the English Laureate, 
and the advance of Louis the X VIII. upon Ghent. In this state of the 
Italian world of letters, it is not surprising that the scholar, to whose per- 
severance, ingenuity, and learning, the public are indebted for the fol- 
lowing fragment, should object to lay claim to the honour which is his 
due. 

The original MS, fell into the hands of my erudite correspondent in 
the autumn of tho year 1817. From that period, until the commencc- 

* Je ne veux pas de savans dans mes etats , je reux de bons sujets, was the 
dictum of the Austrian Autocrat to an Italian Professor. 

1 * 


u 


TO THE READER. 


ment of last winter, all his leisure hours were devoted to the arduous task 
of unrolling the leaves, and decyphering the half-defaced characters. 
The imperfect condition of the MS. soon obliged him to forego his first 
intention of transcribing the original Greek ; he had recourse, therefore, 
to an Italian version, supplying the chasms, consisting sometimes of a 
word, sometimes of a line, and occasionally of a phrase, with a careful and 
laborious study of the context. While this version was printing in Flo- 
rence, a MS. copy was transmitted to me in Paris, with a request that I 
would forthwith see it translated into the English and French lan- 
g'luges. The former version I undertook myself, and can assure the 
reader, that it possesses the merit of fidelity. The first erudite transla- 
tor has not conceived it necessary to encumber the volume with marginal 
notes ; nor have I found either the inclination or the ability to supply 
them. Those who should wish to refer to the allusions scattered through 
the old classics to the characters and systems here treated of, will find 
much assistance from the marginal authorities of the eloquent and in- 
genious Bayle„ 

I have only to add, that the present volume comprises little more than 
a third of the original MS ; it will be sufficient, however, to enable the 
public to form an estimate of the urobable value of the whole. 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


* * * * j 

“Oh monstrous,” cried the young Theon, as he came 
from the portico of Zeno. “Ye Gods ! and will ye suf- 
fer your names to be thus blasphemed ? How do ye not 
strike with thunder the actor and teacher of such enormi- 
ties ! What ! will ye suffer our youth, and the youth 
of after ages, to he seduced by this shameless Garget- 
tian ? Shall the Stoic portico be forsaken for the garden 
of Epicurus ? Minerva, shield thy city ! Shut the ears 
of thy sons against the voice of this deceiver !” 

Thus did Theon give vent to the indignation which 
the words of Timocrates had worked up within him. 
Timocrates had been a disciple of the new school ; but, 
quarrelling with his master, had fled to the followers of 
Zeno ; and to make the greater merit of his apostacy, 
and better to gain the hearts of his new friends, poured 
forth daily execrations on his former teacher, painting 
him and his disciples in the blackest colours of deformi- 
ty ; revealing, with a countenance distorted as with hor- 
ror, and a voice hurried and suppressed a3 from the 
agonies of dreadful recollections, the secrets of those mid- 


8 


A PEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


night orgies, where, in the midst of his pupils, the phi- 
losopher of Gargettium officiated as master of the cursed 
ceremonies of riot and impiety. 

Full of these nocturnal horrors, the young Theon 
traversed with hasty steps the streets of Athens, and, 
issuing from the city, without perceiving that he did so, 
took the road to the Piraeus. The noise of the harbour 
roused him to recollection, and, feeling it out of tune 
with his thoughts, he turned up the more peaceful banks 
of Cephisus, and, seating himself on the stump of a wither- 
ed olive, his feet almost washed by the water, he fell back 
again into his reverie. How long lie had sat he knew 
not, when the sound of gently approaching footsteps once 
more recalled him. He turned his head, and, after a 
start and gaze of astonishment, bent with veneration to 
the figure before him. It was of the middle size, and 
robed in white, pure as the vestments of the Pythia. 
The shape, the attitude, the foldings of the garment, 
were such as the chisel of Phidias would have given to 
the God of Elocution. The head accorded with the rest 
of the figure’; it sat upon the shoulders with a grace that 
a painter would have paused to contemplate— elevated, 
yet somewhat inclining forward, as if habituated gently 
to seek and benevolently to yield attention. The face a 
poet would have gazed upon, and thought he beheld in 
it one of the images of his fancy embodied. The fea- 
tures were not cast for the statuary ; they were noble, 
but not regular. Wisdom beamed mildly from the eye, 
and candour was on the broad forehead : the mouth re- 
posed in a soft, almost imperceptible smile, that did not 
curl the lips or disturb the cheeks, and was seen only in 
the serene and holy benignity that shone over the whole 
physiognomy : it was a gleam of sunshine sleeping on a 
lucid lake. The first lines of age were traced on the 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


9 


brow and round the chin, bpt so gently as to mellow 
rather than deepen expression : the hair indeed seemed 
prematurely touched by time, for it was of a pure silver, 
thrown back from the forehead, and fringing the throa* 
behind with short curls. He received benignly the 
salutation of the youth, and gently with his hand re- 
turning it — u Let me not break your meditations ; I 
would rather share than disturb them.” If the stranger’s 
appearance had enchanted Theon, his voice did now 
more so ; never had a sound so sweet, so musical, struck 
upon his ear. 

iC Surely I behold and hear a divinity,” he cried, step- 
ping backwards, and half stooping his knee with vene- 
ration. 

il From the groves of the academy, I see,” said the 
sage, advancing, and laying his hand on the youth’s 
shoulder. 

Theon looked up with a modest blush, and, encoura- 
ged by the sweet aspect of the sage, replied, “ No ; from 
the portico.” 

“ Ah ! I had not thought Zeno could send forth such 
a dreamer. You are in a good school,” he continued, 
observing the youth confused by his remark, 11 a school 
of real virtue ; and, if I read faces well, as I think I do, 
I see a pupil that will not disgrace its doctrines.” 

Theon’s spirit returned ; the stranger had that look, 
and voice, and manner, which instantly give security to 
the timid, and draw love from the feeling heart. “ If 
you be man, you exert more than human influence over 
the souls of your fellows. I have seen you but one mo- 
ment, and that moment has laid me at your feet.” 

“ Not quite so low, I hope,” returned the sage, with a 
smile ; “ I had always rather be the companion than the 
master.” 


10 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


“ Either, both,” said the eager youth, and, seizing the 
half-extended hand of the sage, pressed it respectfully to 
his lips. 

“ You are an enthusiast, I see. Beware, my young 
friend ! such as you must be the best or the worst of 
men.” 

“ Then, had I you for a guide, I should be the best.”' 

“ What ! do you, a stoic, ask a guide ?” 

“ I, a stoic ! Oh, would I were ! I yet stand but on 
the threshold of the temple.” 

“ But, standing there, you have at least looked within 
and seen the glories, and will not that encourage you to 
advance 7 Who that hath seen virtue doth not love her, 
and pant after her possession ?” 

“ True, true ; I have seen virtue in her noblest form — 
alas ! so noble, that my eyes have been dazzled by the 
contemplation. I have looked upon Zeno with admira- 
tion and despair.” 

u Learn rather to look with love. He who but admires 
virtue, yields her but half her due. She asks to be ap- 
proached, to be embraced — not with fear, but with confi- 
dence — not with awe, but with rapture.” 

“ Yet who can gaze on Zeno, and ever hope to rival 
him ?” 

“ You, my young friend : Why should you not ? 
You have innocence ; you have sensibility ; you have 
enthusiasm; you have ambition. With what better 
promise could Zeno begin his career. Courage ! cou- 
rage ! my son !” stopping, for they had insensibly walk- 
ed towards the city during the dialogue, and laying his 
hand on Theon’s head, “ we want but the will to be as 
great as Zeno.” 

Theon had drawn his breath for a sigh, but this ac- 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


11 


tion and the look that accompanied it, changed the sigh 
to a smile. /4> “ You would make me vain.” 

“No; but I would make you confident. Without 
confidence Homer had never written his Iliad No, nor 
would Zeno now be worshipped in his portico.” 

“ Do you then think confidence would make all men 
Homers and Zenos !” 

“ Not all ; but a good many. I believe thousands to 
have the seeds of excellence in them, who never discover 
the possession. But we were not speaking of poetry 
and philosophy, only of virtue — all men certainly can- 
not be poets or philosophers, but all men may be virtuous.” 

“ I believe,” returned the youth, with a modest blush, 
“ if I might walk with you each day on the borders of 
Cephisus, I should sometimes play truant at the portico.” 

“Ye gods forbid,” exclaimed the sage, playfully, “ that 
I should steal a proselyte ! From Zeno, too ? It might 
cost me dear. — What are you thinking of?” he resumed, 
after a pause. 

“ I was thinking,” replied Theon, “ what a loss for 
man that you are not teacher in the gardens in place of 
the son of Neocles.” 

“ Do you know the son of Neocles?” asked the sage. 

“ The gods forbid that I should know him more than 
by report ! No, venerable stranger ; wrong me not so 
much as to think I have entered the gardens of Epicu- 
rus. It is not long that I have been in Athens, but I 
hope, if I should henceforth live my life here, I shall 
never be seduced by the advocate of vice.” 

“ From my soul I hope the same. But you say you 
have not long been in Athens. You are come here to 
study philosophy.” 

" Yes : my father was a scholar of Xenocrates : but 
when he sent me from Corinth, he bade me attend all 


12 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


the schools, and fix with that which should give me the 
highest views of virtue.” 

u And you have found it to be that of Zeno.” 

“ I think I have : but I was one day nearly gained 
by a young Pythagorean, and have been often in danger 
of becoming one of the academy.” 

“ You need not say in danger : for, though I think 
you choose well in standing mainly by Zeno, I would 
have you attend all the schools, and that with a willing 
ear. There is some risk in following one particular sect, 
even the most perfect, lest the mind become warped and 
the heart contracted. Yes, young man ! it is possible 
that this should happen even in the portico. No sect 
without its prejudices and its predilections.” 

“ I believe you say true.” 

“ I know I say true,” returned the sage, in a tone of 
playfulness he had more than once used ; “I know I 
say true ; and had I before needed evidence to confirm 
my opinion, this our present conversation would have 
afforded it.” 

a How so !” 

“ Nay, were I to explain, you would not now credit 
me ; no man can see his own prejudices ; no, though a 
philosopher should point at them. But patience, pa- 
tience ! Time and opportunity shall right all things. 
Why, you did not think,” he resumed, after a short pause, 
“ you did not really think you were without prejudices 7 
Eighteen, not more, if I may judge by complexion, and 
without prejudices ! Why, I should hardly dare to as- 
sert I was myself without them, and I believe I have 
fought harder and somewhat longer against them than 
you can have done.” 

“ What would you have me do ?” asked the youth, 
timidly. 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


13 


t{ Have you do ? Why, I would have you do a very 
odd thing*. No other than to take a turn or two in Epi- 
curus’ garden.” 

“ Epicurus’ garden ! Oh, Jupiter !” 

“ Very true, by Juno.” 

“ TV hat ! To hear the laws of virtue confounded and 
denied ? To hear vice exculpated, advocated, panegy- 
rised ? Impiety and atheism professed and inculcated ? 
To witness the nocturnal orgies of vice and debauchery? 
Ye gods, what horrors has Tinlocrates revealed !”• 

“ Horrors, in truth, somewhat appalling, my young 
friend ; but I should apprehend Timo'crate3 to be a 
little mistaken. That the laws of virtue were ever 
confounded and denied, or vice advocated and panegy- 
rised, by any professed teacher, I incline to doubt. And 
were I really to hear such things j I should simply con- 
clude the speaker mad, or otherwise that he was amusing 
himself by shifting the meaning of words, and that by 
the term virtue, he understood vice, and so by the con- 
trary. As to the inculcating of impiety and atheism, this 
may be exaggerated or misunderstood. Many are called 
impious, not for having a worse, but a different religion 
from their neighbours ; and many atheistical, not for the 
denying of God, but for thinking somewhat peculiarly 
concerning him. Upon the nocturnal orgies of vice and 
debauchery I can say nothing ; I am too profoundly ig- 
norant of these matters, either to exculpate or condemn 
them. Such things may be, and I never hear of them. 
All things are possible. Yes,” turning his benignant 
face full upon the youth, “ even that Timocrates should 
lie.” 

“ This possibility had indeed not occurred to me.” 

“ No, my young friend ; and shall I tell you wdiy ? 
Because he told you absurdities. Let an impostor keep 


14 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


to probability, and he will hardly impose. By dealing 
in the marvellous, he tickles the imagination, and carries 
away the judgment ; and, judgment once gone, what 
shall save even a wise man from folly ?” 

44 1 should truly rejoice to find the Gargettian’s doc- 
trines less monstrous than I have hitherto thought them. 

I say less monstrous , for you would not wish me to 
think them good.” 

44 I would wish you to think nothing good, or bad 
either, upon my decision. The first and the last thing 
I would say to man is, think for yourself. It is a bad 
sentence of the Pythagoreans, 4 The master said so.’ 
If the young disciple you mentioned should ever succeed 
in your conversion, believe in the metempsychosis for 
some other reason than that Pythagoras 4 taught it.’ ” 

44 But, if I may ask, do you think well of Epicurus ?” 
44 1 meant not to make an apology for Epicurus, only 
to give a caution against Timocrates — but see, we are in 
the city ; and, fortunately so, for it is pretty nigh dark. 
I have a party of young friends awaiting me, and, but 
that you may be apprehensive of nocturnal orgies, I 
would ask you to join us.” 

44 1 shall not fear them, where I have such a conduct- 
or,” replied the youth, laughing. 

44 1 do not think it quite so impossible, however, as 
you seem to do,” said the sage, laughing, in his turn, 
with much humour, and entering a house as he spoke ; 
then throwing open with one arm a door, and with the 
other gently drawing the youth along with him, 44 1 am 
Epicurus.” 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


15 


* * * * II. 

The astonished, the affrighted Theon, started from 
the arm of the sage, and, staggering backwards, was 
saved, probably from falling, by a statue that stood 
against the wall on one side of the door ; he leaned 
against it, pale and almost fainting. He knew not what 
to do, scarcely what to feel, and was totally blind to all 
tiie objects around him. His conductor, who had pos- 
sibly expected his confusion, did not turn to observe it, 
but advanced in such a manner as to cover him from 
the view of the company, and, still to give time for recol- 
lection, stood receiving and returning salutations. 

“ Well met, my sons ! and I suppose you say well 
met, also. Are you starving, or am I to be starved ? 
Have you eat up the supper, or only sat longing for it, 
cursing my delay V 7 

u The latter, only the latter,” cried a lively youth, 
hurrying to meet his master. Another and another ad- 
vanced, and in a moment he was locked in a close circle. 

u Mercy ! mercy !” cried the philosopher, “ drive me 
a step further, and you will overturn a couple of statues.” 
Then, looking over his shoulder, “ I have brought you, 
if he has not run away, a very pleasant young Corin- 
thian, for whom, until he gain his own tongue, I shall 
demand reception.” He held out his hand with a look 
of bewitching encouragement, and the yet faltering 
Theon advanced. The mist had now passed from his 


16 


\ FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


eyes, and the singing- from his ears, and both room and 
company stood revealed before him. Perhaps, had it 
not been for this motion, and still more this look of the 
sage, he had just now made a retreat instead of an ad- 
vance. “ In the hall of Epicurus — in that hall where 
Timocrates had beheld” — oh, horrid imagination ! 
£k And he a disciple of Zeno, the friend of Cleanthes — 
the son of a follower of Plato — had he crossed the 
threshold of vice, the threshold of the impious Garget- 
tian l” Yes ; he had certainly fled, but for that extend- 
ed hand, and that bewitching smile. These however 
conquered. He advanced, and, with an effort at com- 
posure, met the offered hand. The circle made way, 
and Epicurus presented ‘ a friend.’ “ His name you 
must learn from himself, I am only acquainted with his 
heart, and that, on a knowledge of two hours, I pronounce 
myself in love with.” 

“ Then he shall be my brother,” cried the lively 
youth who had before spoken, and he ran to the embrace 
of Theon. 

“ When shall we use our own eyes, ears, and under- 
standings ?” said the sage, gently stroking his scholar’s 
head. “ See ! our new friend knows not how to meet 
your premature affection.” 

“ He waits,” returned the youth, archly, “ to receive 
the same commendation of me that I have of him. Let 
the master say he is in love with my heart, and he too 
will open his arms to a brother.” 

“ I hope he is not such a fool,” gaily replied the sage. 
Then, with an accent more serious, but still sweeter, “ I 
hope he will judge all things, and all people, with his 
own understanding, and not with that of Epicurus, or 
yet of a wiser man. When may I hope this of So- 


A PEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


17 


fron?” smiling and shaking his head; “ can Sofron 
tell me ?” 

“ No, indeed he cannot,” rejoined the scholar, smiling 
and shaking his head also, as in mimicry of his master. 

“ Go, go, you rogue ! and show us to our supper : 1 
more than half suspect you have devoured it.” He 
turned, and familiarly taking Theon by the shoulder, 
walked up the room, or rather gallery, and entered a 
spacious rotunda. 

A lamp, suspended from the centre of the ceiling, 
lighted a table spread beneath it, with a simple but ele- 
gant repast. Round the walls, in niches at equal dis- 
tances, stood twelve statues, the work of the best masters ; 
on either hand of these burnt a lamp on a small tripod. 
Beside one of the lamps, a female figure was reclining 
on a couch, reading with earnest study from a book that 
lay upon her knee. Her head was so much bowed for- 
ward as to conceal her face, besides that it was shadow- 
ed by her hand, which, the elbow supported on an arm 
of the couch, was spread above her brows as a relief 
from the ^ ire of the light. At her feet was seated a 
young gi by whose side lay a small cithara, silent, and 
forgotten by its mistress. Crete might have lent those 
eyes their sparkling jet, but all the soul of tenderness 
that breathed from them was pure Ionian. The full 
and ruddjr lips, half parted, showed two rows of pearls, 
which Thetis might have envied. Still a vulgar eye 
would not have rested on the countenance : the features 
wanted the Doric harmony, and the complexion was 
tinged as by an Afric sun. Theon, however, saw not 
this, as his eyes fell on those of the girl, uplifted to the 
countenance of her studious companion. Never was a 
book read more earnestly than was that face by the fond 
and gentle eyes which seemed to worship as they gazed. 

2 * 


18 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


The sound of approaching feet caught the ear of the 
maiden. She rose, blushed, half returned the salute of 
the master, and timidly drew back some paces. The 
student was still intent upon the scroll over which she 
hung, when the sage advanced towards her, and laying 
a finger on her shoulder, “What read you, my daugh- 
ter ?” She dropt her hand, and looked up in his face. 
What a countenance was then revealed ! It was not 
the beauty of blooming, blushing youth, courting love 
and desire. It was the self-possessed dignity of ripened 
womanhood, and the noble majesty of mind, that asked 
respect and promised delight and instruction. The 
features were not those of Venus, but Minerva. The 
eyes looked deep and steady from beneath two even 
brows, that sense, not years, had slightly knit in centre 
of the forehead, which else was uniformly smooth and 
polished as marble. The nose was rather Roman than 
Grecian, yet perfectly regular, and, though not mascu- 
line, would have been severe in expression, but for a 
mouth where all that was lovely and graceful habited. 
The chin was elegantly rounded, and turned in the 
Greek manner. The colour of the cheeks was of the 
softest and palest rose, so pale, indeed, as scarcely to be 
discernible until deepened by emotion. It was so at this 
moment : startled by the address of the sage, a bright 
flush passed over her face. She rolled up the book, 
dropt it on the couch, and rose. Her stature was much 
above the female standard, but every limb and every 
motion was symmetry and harmony. “ A treatise of 
Theophrastus ; — eloquent, ingenious, and chimerical. I 
have a fancy to answer it.” Her voice was full and 
deep, like the tones of a harp, when its chords are struck 
by the hand of a master. 

“ No one could do it better,” replied the sage. “But 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


19 


I should have guessed the aged Peripatetic already si- 
lenced by the most acute, elegant, and subtle pen of 
Athens.” She bowed to the compliment. 

“Is that then the famous Leontium?” muttered Theon. 
“ Timocrates must be a liar.” • 

“I know not,” resumed Leontium, “ that I should this 
evening have so frequently thought Theophrastus wrong, 
if he had not made me so continually feel that he thought 
himself right. Must I seek the cause of this in the wri- 
ter’s or the reader’s vanity ?” 

“ Perhaps,” said the master, smiling, “ you will find 
that it lies in both.” 

“ I believe you have it,” returned Leontium. “ Theo- 
phrastus, in betraying his self-love, hurt mine. He who 
is about to prove that his own way of thinking is right, 
must bear in mind, that he is about also to prove, that 
all other ways of thinking are wrong. And if this should 
make him slow to enter on the undertaking, it should 
make him yet more careful, when he does enter on it, 
to do it with becoming modesty. We are surely impe- 
riously called upon to make a sacrifice of our own vani- 
ty, before we call upon others to make a sacrifice of 
theirs. But I would not particularize Theophrastus for 
sometimes forgetting this, as I have never known but 
one who always remembers it. Gentleness and modesty 
are qualities at once the most indispensable to a teacher, 
and the most rarely possessed by him. It was these that 
won the ears of the Athenian youth to Socrates, and it 
is these,” inclining to the master, “ that will secure them 
to Epicurus.” 

u Could I accept your praise, my daughter, I should 
have no doubt of the truth of your prophecy. For, in- 
deed, the mode of delivering a truth ipakes, for the most 
part, as much impression on the mind of the listener, as 


20 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENE. 


the truth itself. It is as hard to receive the words of 
wisdom from the ungentle, as it is to love, or even to 
recognise virtue in the austere.” He drew near the 
table as he spoke. Often during supper were the eyes 
of Theon riveted on the face of this female disciple. 
Such grace ! such majesty ! More than all, such intel- 
lect ! And this — this was the Leontium Timocrates 
had called a prostitute without shame or measure ! And 
this was the Epicurus he had blasted with names too 
vile and horrible to repeat even in thought ! And these 
— continuing his inward soliloquy as he looked round 
the board — these were the devoted victims of the vice of 
an impious master. 

u You arrived most seasonably this evening,” cried 
Sofron, addressing the philosopher ; “ most seasonably 
for the lungs of two of your scholars.” 

“ And for the ears of a third,” interrupted Leontium. 
u I was fairly driven into exile.” 

“ What was the subject ?” asked Epicurus. 

“ Whether the vicious were more justly objects of in- 
dignation or of contempt : Metrodorus argued for the first, 
and I for the latter. Let the master decide.” 

“ He will give his opinion certainly ; but that is not 
decision.” 

“ Well : and your opinion is that of .” 

u Neither.” 

“ Neither ! I had no idea the question had more than 
two sides.” 

“ It has yet a third ; and I hardly ever heard a ques- 
tion that had not. Had I regarded the vicious with in- 
dignation, I had never gained one to virtue. Had I 
viewed them with contempt, I had never sought to gain 
one.” 

“ How is it,” said Leontium, “ that the scholars are so 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


21 


little familiar with the temper of their master ? When 
did Epicurus look on the vicious with other than com- 
passion ?” 

“ True,” said Metrodorus. “ I know not how I for- 
got this, when perhaps it is the only point which I have, 
more than once, presumed to argue with him ; and upon 
which I have persisted in retaining a different opinion ” 

f£ Talk not of presumption, my son. Who has not a 
right to think for. himself ? Or, who is he whose voice 
is infallible, and worthy to silence those of his fellow- 
men? And remember, that your remaining uncon- 
vinced by my arguments on one occasion, can only tend 
to make your conviction more flattering to me upon 
others. Yet, on the point in question, were I anxious to 
bring you over to my opinion, I know one, whose ar- 
gument, better and more forcible than mine, will ere long 
most effectually do so.” 

“ Who mean you ?” 

“ No other than old hoary Time,” said the master, 
“ who, as he leads us gently onwards in the path of 
life, demonstrates to us many truths that we never heard 
in the schools, and some that, hearing there, we found 
hard to receive. Our knowledge of human life must be 
acquired by our passage through it ; the lessons of the 
sage are not sufficient to impart it. Our knowledge of 
men must be acquired by our own study of them ; the 
report of others will never convince us. When you, my 
son, have seen more of life, and studied more men, you 
will find, or, at least, I think you will find, that the 
judgment is not false which makes us lenient to the fail- 
ings — yea! even to the crimes of our fellows. In youth, 
we act on the impulse of feeling, and we feel without 
pausing to judge. An action, vicious in itself, or that is 
so merely in our estimation, fills us with horror, and we 


22 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


turn from its agent without waiting to listen to the plea 
which his ignorance could make to our mercy. In our 
ripened years, supposing our judgment to have ripened 
also, when all the insidious temptations that misguided 
him, and all the disadvantages that he has laboured un- 
der, perhaps from his birth, are apparent to us — it is 
then, and not till then, that our indignation at the crime 
is lost in our pity of the man.” 

“ I am the last,” said Metrodorus, a crimson blush 
spreading over his face, “ who should object to my mas- 
ter his clemency towards the offending. Bpt there are 
vices, different from those he saved me from, which, if 
not more unworthy, are perhaps more unpardonable, be- 
cause committed with less temptation ; and more revolt- 
ing, as springing less from thoughtless ignorance than 
calculating depravity.” 

“ Are we not prone,” said the sage, “ to extenuate our 
foibles, even while condemning them ? And does it not 
flatter our self-love, to weigh our own vices against those 
of more erring neighbours V 9 

The scholar leaned forwards, and stooping his face 
towards the hand of his master, where it rested on the 
table, laid the deepening crimsons of his cheek upon it. 
“ I mean not to exculpate the early vices of Metrodorus. 
I love to consider them in all their enormity ; for the 
more heinous the vices of his youth, the greater is the 
debt of gratitude his manhood has to repay to thee. But 
tell me,” he added, and lifted his eyes to the benignant 
face of the sage, “ tell me, oh, my friend and guide ! was 
the soul of Metrodorus found base or deceitful ; or has 
his heart proved false to gratitude and affection ?” 

“ No, my son, no,” said Epicurus, his face beaming 
with goodness, and a tear glistening in his eye. “ No ! 
Vice never choked the warm feelings of thy heart, nor 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS# 


23 


clouded the fair ingenuousness of thy soul. But, my 
son, a few years later — a few years later, and who shall 
say what might have been ! Trust me, none can drink 
of the cup of vice with impunity. But you will say, 
that there are qualities of so mean or so horrible a nature, 
as to place the man that is governed by them out of the 
pale of communion with the virtuous. Malice, cruelty, 
deceit, ingratitude — crimes such as these, should, you 
think, draw down upon those convicted of them, no 
feelings more mild than abhorrence, execration, and 
scorn. And yet, perhaps, these were not always natu- 
ral to the heart they now sway. Fatal impressions, vi- 
cious example, operating on the plastic frame of chil- 
hood, may have perverted all the fair gifts of nature, 
may have distorted the tender plant from the seedling, 
and crushed all the blossoms of virtue in the germ. 
Say, shall we not compassionate the moral disease of 
our brother, and try our skill to restore him to health ? 
But is the evil beyond cure ? Is the mind strained into 
changeless deformity, and the heart corrupted in the 
core ? Greater, then, much greater, will be our com- 
passion. For is not his wretchedness complete, when 
hi3 errors are without hope of correction ? Oh, my sons ! 
the wicked may work mischief to others, but they never 
can inflict a pang such as they endure themselves. I 
am satisfied, that of all the miseries that tear the heart of 
man, none may compare with those it feels beneath the 
sway of baleful passions.” 

“ Oh,” cried Theon, turning with a timid blush to 
wards Epicurus, “ I have long owned the power of vir 
tue, but surely till this night I never felt its persuasion.” 

“ I see you were not born for a stoic,” said the master, 
smiling. “ Why, my son, what made you fall in love 
with Zeno?” 


24 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


“ His virtues,” said the youth, proudly. 

“ His fine face and fine talking,” returned the philo- 
sopher, with a tone of playful irony. “ Nay ! don’t be 
offended ;” . and he stretched his hand to Theon’s shoul- 
der, who reclined on the sofa next him. “ I admire 
your master very much, and go to hear him very often.” 

“Indeed!”? 

“ Indeed ? Yes, indeed. Is it so wonderful ?” 

“ You were not there” — Theon stopt and looked down 
in confusion. 

“ To-day, you mean ? Yes, I was ; and heard a de- 
scription of myself that might match in pleasantry with 
that in 4 The Clouds’* of old Socrates. Pray don’t you 
find it very like ?” He leaned over the side of the couch, 
and looked in Theon’s face. 

“ I — I”— The youth stammered and looked down. 

“ Think it is,” said the sage, as if concluding the sen- 
tence for him. 

“ No, think it is not ; swear it is not,” burst forth the 
eager youth, and looked as he would have thrown him- 
self at the philosopher’s feet. “ Oh ! why did you not 
stand forth and silence the liar ?” 

“ Truly, my son, the liar was too pleasant to be angry 
with, and too absurd to he answered.” 

“ And yet he was believed ?” 

“ Of course.” 

“ But why then not answer him ?” 

“ And so I do. I answer him in my life. The only 
way in which a philosopher should ever answer a fool, 
or, as in this case, a knave.” 

“ I am really bewildered,” cried Theon, gazing in 

* Alluding to the comedy of Aristophar.es, in which Socrates was 
indecently ridiculed. * 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


25 


the philosophers, and then in Leontium’s countenance, 
and then throwing a glance round the circle. “I am 
really bewildered with astonishment and shame,” he 
continued, casting down his eyes, “ that I should have 
listened to that liar Timocrates ! What a fool you must 
think me !” 

“ No more of a fool than Zeno,” said the sage, laugh- 
ing. “ What a philosopher listened to, I cannot much 
blame a scholar for believing.” 

“ Oh, that Zeno knew you !” 

•“ And then he would certainly hate me” 

“ You joke.” 

“ Quite serious. Don’t you know that who quarrels 
with your doctrine, must always quarrel with your prac- 
tice ? Nothing is so provoking as that a man should 
preach viciously and act virtuously.” 

“ But you do not preach viciously.” 

“ I hope not. But those will call it so, aye ! and in 
honest heart think it so, who preach a different, it need 
not be a better , doctrine.” 

11 But Zeno mistakes your doctrine.” 

' “ I have no doubt he expounds it wrong.” 

“ He mistakes it altogether. He believes that you 
own no other law — no other principle of action — than 
pleasure.” 

“ He believes right.” 

“ Right ? Impossible ! That you teach men to 
laugh at virtue, and to riot in luxury and vice.” 

“ There he believes wrong.” 

Theon looked as he felt, curious and uncertain. He 
gazed first on the philosopher, and, when he did not 
proceed, timidly round the circle. Every face had a 
smile on it. 


3 


26 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


u The orgies are concluded,” said Epicurus, rising, 
and turning with affected gravity to the young Corin- 
thian. “ You have seen the horrors of the night ; if 
they have left any curiosity for the mysteries of the day, 
seek our garden to-morrow at sun-rise, and you shall 
be initiated.” 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


27 


* * * * III. 

The steeds of the sun had not mounted the horizon 
when Theon took the road to the gardens. He found 
the gate open. The path he entered on was broad and 
even, and shaded on either side by rows of cork, lime, 
oak, and other the finest trees of the forest : pursuing 
this for some way, he suddenly opened on a fair and 
varied lawn, through which the Illissus, now of the 
whitest silver in the pale twilight, stole with a gentle 
and noiseless course. Crossing the lawn, he struck into 
a close thicket : the orange, the laurel, and the myrtle, 
hung over his head, whose flowers, slowly opening to 
the breeze and light of morning, dropt dews and per- 
fumes. A luxurious indolence crept over his soul ; he 
breathed the airs, and felt the bliss of Elysium. With 
slow and measured steps he threaded the maze, till he 
entered suddenly on a small open plot of verdure in face 
of a beautiful temple. The place was three parts encir- 
cled with a wood of flowering shrubs, the rest was girded 
by the winding Illissus, over which the eye wandered to 
glades and softly swelling hills, whose bosoms now 
glowed beneath the dyes of Aurora. The building was 
small and circular ; Doric, and of the marble of Paros : 
an open portico, supported by twenty pillars, ran round 
the edifice : the roof rose in a dome. The roseate tints 
of the east fell on the polished columns, like the blush 




28 A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 

of love on the cheek of Diana, when she stood before her 
Endymion. 

Theon stopt: the scene was heavenly. Long had 
he gazed in silent and calm delight, when his eye was 
attracted by the waving of a garment on one side of the 
temple. He advanced, and beheld a figure leaning 
against one of the pillars. The sun at that moment 
shot his first beam above’the hills : it fell full upon the 
face of the son of Neocles : it was raised, and the ej^es 
were fixed as in deep meditation. The features reposed 
in the calm of wisdom : the arms were folded, and the 
drapery fell in masses to the feet. Theon flew towards 
him, then suddenly stopt, fearing to break upon his 
thoughts. At the sound, the sage turned his head — 
“ Welcome, my son,” he said, advancing to meet him, 
“ welcome to the garden of pleasure ; may you find it 
the abode of peace, of wisdom, and of virtue.” 

Theon bowed his head upon the hand of the master. 
“ Teach me, guide me, make me what you will — my 
soul is ill your hand.” 

“ It is yet tender, yet pure,” said the Gargettian: 
“ years shall strengthen it. Oh ! let them not sully it ! 
See to that luminary ! lovely and glorious in the dawn, 
h : gathers strength and beauty to his meridian, and 
passes in peace and grandeur to his rest. So do thou, 
my son. Open your ears and your eyes; know, and 
choose what is good ; enter the path of virtue, and thou 
shalt follow it, for thou shalt find it sweet. Thorns are 
not in it, nor is it difficult or steep : like the garden you 
have now entered, all there is pleasure and repose.” 

“ Ah !” cried Theon, “ how different is virtue in your 
mouth and in Zeno’s.” 

“The doctrine of Zeno,” replied the sage, “is sublime: 
many great men shall come from his school ; an amia- 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


29 


ble world, from mine. Zeno hath his eye on man — I, 
mine on men : none but philosophers can be stoics ; 
Epicureans all may be.” 

“But,” asked Theon, “is there more than one virtue?” 

“ No, but men clothe her differently ; some in clouds 
and thunders ; some in smiles and pleasures Doctors, 
my son, quarrel more about words tha;i luings, and more 
about the means than the end. in the Portico, in the 
Lyceum, in the Academy, in the School of Pythagoras, 
in the Tuo of Diogenes, the teacher points you to virtue ; 
in the Garden he points you to happiness. Now open 
your eyes, my son, and examine the two Deities. Say, 
are they not the same ? virtue, is it not happiness ? and 
is not happiness, virtue ?” 

“ Is this, then, the secret of your doctrine ?” 

“ No other.” 

“ But — but — where then is the dispute ? Truly, as 
you have said, in words, not things.” 

“ Yes, in a great measure, yet not altogether : we are 
all the wooers of virtue, but we are wooers of a different 
character.” 

« And may she not then favour one more than an- 
other ?” 

“ That is a question,” replied the Gargettian, playful- 
ly, “ that each will answer in his own favour. If you 
ask me,” he continued, with one of his sweetest tones 
and smiles, “ I shall say, that I feel myself virtuous, be- 
cause my soul is at rest.” 

“ If this be your criterion, you should with the stoics 
deny that pain is an evil.” 

“ By no means : so much the contrary, I hold it the 
greatest of all evils, and the v/hoie aim of my life, and of 
my philosophy, is to escape from it. To deny that pain 
is an evil, is such another quibble as the Elean’s denial 

3 * 


30 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS- 


of motion : that must exist to man which exists to his 
senses ; and as to existence or non-existence abstracted 
from them, though it may afford an idle argument for 
an idle hour, it can never enter as a truth, from which 
to draw conclusions, in the practical lessons of a master. 
To deny that pain is an evil, seems more absurd than 
to deny its existence, which has also been done, for its 
existence is only apparent from its effect upon our 
senses ; how then shall we admit the existence, and 
deny the effect, which alone forces that admittance? 
But we will leave these matters to the dialecticians of 
the Portico. I feel myself virtuous because my soul is 
at rest. With evil passions I should be disturbed and 
uneasy ; with uncontrolled appetites I should be disor- 
dered in body as well as mind — for this reason, and for 
this reason only, I avoid both.” 

“ Only 1” 

“ Only : virtue is pleasure ; were it not so, I should 
not follow it.” 

Theon was about to break forth in indignant astonish- 
ment : the sage softly laid a hand upon his arm, and, 
with a smile and bend of the head demanding attention, 
proceeded : u The masters who would have us to follow 
virtue for her own sake, independent of any pleasure or 
advantage that we may find in the pursuit, are sublime 
visionaries, who build a theory without examining the 
ground on which they build it, who advance doctrines 
without examining principles. Why do I gaze on the 
Cupid of Praxiteles ? because it is beautiful ; because it 
gives me pleasuiable sensations. If it gave me no 
pleasurable sensations, should I find it beautiful ? should 
I gaze upon it ? or would you call me wise if then I 
gave a drachma for its possession ? What other means 
have we of judging of things than by the effect they 


A. PEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


31 


produce upon our senses? Our senses then being the 
judges of all things, the aim of all men is to gratify their 
senses ; in other words, their aim is pleasure or happi- 
ness : and if virtue were not found to conduce to this, 
men would do well to shun her, as they now do well to 
shun vice.” 

“ You own then no pleasure but virtue, and no misery 
but vice ?” 

“ Not at all : I think virtue only the highest pleasure, 
and vice, or ungoverned passions and appetites, the 
worst misery. Other pleasures are requisite to form a 
state of perfect ease, which is happiness ; and other 
miseries are capable of troubling, perhaps destroying, the 
peace of the most virtuous and the wisest man.” 

. “ I begin to see more reason in your doctrine,” said 
the youth, looking up with a timid blush in the face of 
the philosopher. 

“ And less monstrous depravity,” replied the Garget- 
tian, laughing. “ My young friend,” he continued, 
more seriously, “learn henceforth to form your judgments 
upon knowledge, not report. Credulity is always a ri- 
diculous, often a dangerous failing : it has made of 
many a clever man, a fool ; and of many a good man, a 
knave. But have you nothing to urge against me? 
You say you see more reason in my doctrine, which im- 
plies, that you think me less wrong, but not right.” 

“I am a young disputant,” answered Theon, “ and 
very unfit to engage with such a master.” 

“ That does not Mow ; a bad logician may have a 
good understanding ; and a young mind may be an 
acute one. If my argument have truth in it, less than a 
philosopher will see it ; and if it have not, less than a lo- 
gician may refute it.” 

“I think I could urge some objections,” replied Theon; 


32 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


“ but they are so confused and indistinct, I almost fear 
to bring them forth.” 

t‘ I dare say I could forestal the most of them,” said 
the master. “ But I had rather leave your mind to its 
own exercise. Think over the matter at leisure, and 
you shall start your questions some evening or morning 
among my scholars. Knowledge is better imparted in 
a dialogue than a lecture ; and a dialogue is not the 
worse for having more than two interlocutors. So ! our 
walk has well ended with our subject. Let us see what 
friends are here. There are surely voices.” 

Their route had been circular, and had brought them 
again in front of the temple. “ This is a favourite lodge- 
ment of mine,” said the sage, ascending the noble flight 
of steps and entering the open door. The apartment, 
spacious, vaulted, and circular, occupied the whole of 
the building. The walls were adorned with fine copies 
of the best pieces of Zeuxis and Parrhasius, and some- 
beautiful originals of Apelles. A statue, the only one in 
the apartment, was raised on a pedestal in the centre. 
It was a Yenus Urania, by the hand of Lysippus, well 
chosen as the presiding deity in the gardens of virtuous 
pleasure. The ceiling, rising, into a noble dome, repre- 
sented the heavens— a ground of deep blue the stars, 
sun, and planets, in raised gold. But two hying figures 
soon fixed the attention of Theon. In one/he recognised 
Metrodorus, though he had not the evening before much 
observed his countenance. He stood A a painter’s easel. 
His figure was more graceful than dignified, his face 
more expressive than handsomh. The eyes, dark, 
piercing, and brilliant, were b&nt in a painter’s earnest 
gaze on his living study. /The forehead was short, 
raised much at the temple, and singularly over the 

• " ^ . / 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


33 


brows. The hair of a dark glossy brown, short and 
curled. The cheeks at the moment deeply flushed with 
the eagerness, and, perhaps, the impatience of an artist. 
The mouth curled voluptuously, yet not without a mix- 
ture of satire ; the chin curved upwards, slightly Gre- 
cian, assisted this expression. His study was Leontium. 
She stood, rather than learfed, against a pilaster of the 
wall ; one arm supported on a slab of marble, an un- 
rolled book half lying on the same, and half in her open- 
ed hand. The other arm, partly hid in the drapery, 
dropped loosely by her side. Her fine face turned a lit- 
tle over the left shoulder, to meet the eye of the painter. 
Not a muscle played ; the lips seemed not to breathe : so 
calm, so pale, so motionless — she looked a statue ; so no- 
ble, so severely beautiful — she looked the Minerva of 
Phidias. 

“ I cannot do it 1” cried Metrodorus, flinging down his 
pencil. “ I had need be Apelles, to take that face.” 
He pushed back his easel in disgust. 

“ What !” said Leontium, her fine features relaxing 
into a heavenly smile, “ and is all my patience to go for 
nothing ?” 

' £t I am a blundering, blind Boeotian ! a savage Spar- 
tan !” continued the disappointed artist. “ There !” and 
seizing a brush, was about to demolish his work. 

“ For your life !” cried Leontium ; and starting for- 
ward, pulled aside his hand. “ Oh, the mad ill-temper 
of a genius ! Why, friend, if my face were half so fine 
as that, Juno would be jealous of it.” 

11 And who knows that she is not ? A daub ! a vile 
daub !” still muttered the impatient scholar, yet his face 
gradually relaxing its anger, as in spite of itself, till it 
turned to meet Leontium’s with a smile. 


34 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


“ And there stand the master and the young Corin- 
thian laughing at you/’ said Leontium. 

They approached. “ Are you a judge ?” asked Me- 
trodorus of Theon. 

u I am afraid not, though the confession will mar my 
compliments.” 

“ But I am,” said the Gargettian, humorously : “ and 
though I have all the inclination in the world, yet I 
cannot quarrel with the performance. Well outlined 
and finely coloured. The attitude and air hit exactly. 
The features too. Perhaps — the only possible per- 
haps my ill-nature can stumble on — perhaps the ex- 
pression is too blooming, and less mental than that of 
the original.” 

“ Why there — there it is !” cried the scholar, his face 
resuming all its vexation. “ The look of an idiot instead 
of a genius.” 

u Not quite that either : only of a Hebe instead of a 
Juno. More like our Hedeia.” 

il Like a monster !” muttered the angry artist. 

li Oh Hercules, oh Hercules !” cried the sage. “ What 
it is to rub a sore place ! Better break a man’s leg than 
blow a feather on his razed shin. Had I (turning to 
Theon) told him he had drawn a hump-backed Thersites 
lie would have blessed me, rather than for this pretty 
compliment of a blooming-faced Hebe.” 

“ I might as well have done one as the other ; they 
were equally like the original.” 

“ I must bow to that compliment,” said Leontium, 
laying her hand on her breast, and inclining with affect- 
ed gravity to the painter. 

He tried in vain to resist the laugh : then looking to 
the master — “ What would you have me turn it to ?” 

“ As you object to a Hebe, to a philosopher by all 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


35 


means. Silver the head a little, it may be an admira- 
ble Epicurus.” 

“ Nay ! don’t make the madman furious,” said Leon- 
tium, placing her hand on Metrodorus’s shoulder ; then, 
addressing Theon, u Pray, young man, if you want to 
be a philosopher, never find an eye for painting, a finger’ 
for music, or a brain for poetry. Any one of these will 
keep a man from wisdom.” 

“ But not a woman, I suppose,” retorted Metrodorus, 
“ as you have all three.” 

“ Ready at compliments this morning : but if you 
wanted a bow for this, you should have given it with 
a more gracious face. But come, my poor friend ; we 
will try and put you in good humour — nothing like a 
little flattery for this. Here, my young Corinthian! 
(walking to the other side of the room to a newly fin- 
ished picture that stood against the wall, and beckon- 
ing Theon towards her,) you may without skill per- 
ceive the beauty of this work, and the excellence of the 
likeness.” 

It was indeed striking. “ Admirable !” cried Theon, 
after a long gaze of admiration, and then turning to 
compare it with the original. 

“A little flattered, and more than a little, I fear,” said 
Epicurus with a smile, as he moved towards them. 

" Flattered !” exclaimed Metrodorus ; “ a Parrhasius 
could not flatter such an original.” 

“ You see how my scholars spoil me,” said the Gar- 
gettian to Theon. 

“ But you think,” continued Metrodorus, “ that J have 
done it common justice.” 

“ Much more than common : — It is your Master’s 
self. The dignity of his figure, the grace of his attitude* 


36 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


the nobility of his features, the divine benignity of his 
expression. Had we not the original to worship, we 
might worship your copy.” 

They were interrupted by the entrance of a 
crowd of disciples, in the midst of whose salutations 
young Sofron rushed in, breathless with running and 
convulsed with laughter. 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS 


37 


* * * * 1Y. 

“ Prepare yourselves ! prepare yourselves !” cried 
the panting scholar. “ Oh, Pollux, such a couple ! The 
contrast might convulse a Scythian.” 

“ What is it ? What is the matter ?” cried a dozen 
voices. 

“ I’ll explain directly — give me breath — and yet I 
must be quick, for they are close on my heels. Gryphus, 
the cynic— some of you must have seen him. Well, he’s 
coming side by side with young Lycaon.” 

“ Coming here,” said the master, smiling. “ What 
can have procured me the honour of such a visit ?” 

“ Oh, your fame of course.” 

“ I suspect you are making a fool of the old Cynic,” 
said Epicurus. 

, “Nay, if he be a fool, he is one without my assistance : 
Lycaon and I were standing on the steps of the Pryta- 
neum, disputing about something, I forget what, when 
by came Gryphus, and stopping short at bottom of the 
steps, ‘Are you disciples of Epicurus, of Gargettium V 
1 We are,’ answered I, for Lycaon only stood staring in 
amazement. ‘ You may show me the way to him then.’ 
6 With all my heart,’ I again replying, Lycaon not yet 
finding his tongue. 1 We are at present for the gardens, 
and shall hold it an honour to be conductors to so extra- 
ordinary a personage.’ I wanted to put him between us, 
but Lycaon seemed unambitious of his share in this dis- 
4 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


3 $ 

tinction, for, stepping back, he slipt round to my other 
side. Oh, Jupiter ! I shall never forget the contrast ben 
tween my two companions. The rough, dirty, hairy 
cynic on my right hand, and the fine, smooth, delicate, 
pretty Aristippian on my left. We brought the whole 
street at our heels. Lycaon would have slunk away, 
but I held him tight by the sleeve. When we were 
fairty in the gardens, I gave them the slip at a cross- 
path, and run on before to give timely notice, as you see. 
But lo ! behold !” 

The two figures now appeared at the door. The con- 
trast was not much less singular than the scholar had 
represented ; and there was a sort of faint prelude to a 
universal laugh, which, however, a timely look from the 
master instantly quelled. Lycaon, from the lightness of 
his figure, and delicacy of his features and complexion, 
might have been mistaken for a female : his skin had 
the whiteness of the lily, and the blushing red of the 
rose; his lips the vermil of coral: his hair soft and 
flowing ; in texture, silk ; in colour, gold : his dress was 
chosen with studied nicety, and disposed with studied 
elegance : the tunic of the whitest and finest linen, fast- 
ened at the shoulder with a beautiful onyx : the sash 
of exquisite embroidery, and the robe of the richest Ty- 
nan, falling in luxuriant folds from the shoulders, and 
over the right arm, which gracefully sustained its length, 
for the greater convenience in walking: the sandals 
purple, with buttons of gold. Gryphus, short, square, - 
and muscular ; his tunic of the coarsest and not the 
cleanest woollen, in some places worn thread-bare, and 
with one open rent of considerable magnitude, that 
proved the skin to be as well engrained as its covering : 
his girdle, a rope : his cloak, or rather rag, had the ap- 
pearance of a sail taken from the wreck of an old trader: 


A PEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


39 


Lis feet bare, and thickly powdered with dust : of his 
face, little more might be distinguished than the nose ; 
the lower part being obscured by a bushy and wide-spread- ' 
ing beard, and the upper, by a profusion of long, tangled, 
and grisly hair. The wondering disciples opened a pas- 
sage for this singular intruder, who, without looking .to 
the right or the left, walked on, and stopt before Epicurus. 

“ I suppose you are the master, by the needless trouble 
I see you take, in coming to meet me.” 

“ When Gryphus has possibly walked a mile to meet 
Epicurus, Epicurus may without much trouble walk e 
step to meet Gryphus.” 

“ In my walk of a mile,” returned the' cynic, “there 
was no trouble : I took it for my own pleasure.” 

. “ And my walk of a step I also took for mine.” 

“ Aye, the pleasure of ceremony !” 

“ I may hope then this your visit is from something 
more than ceremony— perhaps a feeling of real friend- 
ship, or as a mark of your good opinion.” 

“ I hate useless words,” returned the cynic, “ and am 
not come here either to make any, or hearken to any. I 
have heard you much talked of lately. Our streets and 
our porticoes buzz eternally with your name, till now 
all wise men are weary of it. I come to tell you this, 
and to advise you to shut the gates of your gardens forth- 
with, and to cease the harangues of a master, since you 
only pass for a philosopher among fools, and for a fool 
among philosophers.” 

“ I thank you for your honest advice and information, 
friend ; but as the object of a master is not to teach the 
wise, but only the unwise, do you not think I may still 
harangue among fools to some little purpose, though 
Gryphus, and all sages, will of course justly hold me in 
contempt?” 


40 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


“And so that fools may be made wise, the wise are to 
be plagued with folly ?” 

“ Nay, you would surely cease to think that folly 
which could make a fool wise.” 

“ A fool wise ! And who but a fool would think that 
possible ?” 

“ I grant it were difficult : but may it not also some- 
times be difficult to discover who is a fool, and who not 7 
Among my scholars there, some doubtless may be fools, 
and some possibly may not be fools.” 

“ No,” interrupted the cynic, “ or they would not be 
your scholars.” 

“Ah! I being a fool myself. Well reminded! I 
bad forgot that was one of our premises. But then, I 
being a fool, and all my scholars being fools, I do not see 
how much harm can be done, either by my talking folly, 
or their hearkening to it.” 

“ No, if wise men were not forced to hearken also. I 
tell you, that our streets and our porticoes buzz with 
your name and your nonsense. Keep all the fools of 
Athens in your gardens, and lock the gates, and you 
may preach folly as long and as loud as you please.” 

“ I have but one objection to this, namely, that my 
gardens would not hold all the fools of Athens. Sup- 
pose, therefore, the wise men, being a smaller body, were 
shut into a garden, and the city and the rest of Attica 
left for the fools.” 

“ I told you,” cried the cynic, in a voice of anger, 
“ that I hated useless words.” 

“ Nay, friend, why then walk a mile to speak advice 
to me 7 No words so useless as those thrown at a fool.” 

“ Very true, very true ;” and so saying, the stranger 
turned his back and quitted the temple. 

“ There,” said the son of Neocles to his smiling disci- 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 41 

pies, “ is a good warning to any, or all of us, who would 
be philosophers.” 

. “ Nay, master,” cried Sofron, “ do you think us in 
danger of following the pleasant example of this savage ? 
Do you, indeed, expect to see Lycaon there, with beard, 
head, and clothing, after the fashion of Gryphus V 

“ Not beard, head, and clothing, perhaps,” answered 
the Gargettian ; “ pride, vanity, and ambition, may take 
less fearful coverings than these.” 

“ Pride, vanity, and ambition ? I should rather sus- 
pect Gryphus of the want of all three.” 

“ Nay, my son, believe me, all those three qualities 
were concerned in the carving of those three frightful 
appendages of our cynic’s person. Pride need not al- 
ways lead a man to cut mount Athos in two, like Xerxes; 
nor ambition, to conquer a world, and weep that there is 
yet not another to conquer, like Alexander ; nor vanity, 
to look in a stream at his own face till he fall in love 
with it, like Narcissus. When we cannot cut an Athos, 
we may leave uncut our beard ; when we cannot mount 
a throne, we may crawl into a tub ; and when we have 
no beauty, we may increase our ugliness. If a man of 
small, or even of moderate talents, be smitten with a 
great desire of distinction, there is nothing too absurd, 
perhaps nothing too mischievous, for him to commit. 
Our friend, the cynic, happily for himself and his neigh- 
bours, seems disposed to rest with the absurd. Eros- 
tratus took to the mischievous — to eternize his name de- 
stroying that temple, by the building of which Etesiphon 
immortalized his. Be it our care to keep equally clear 
of the one as the other.” 

“ Do you then,” asked Theon, “think a desire of dis- 
tinction a vicious desire ?” 


4 ’ 


42 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


“ I think it is often a dangerous desire, and very often 
an unhappy one.” 

“ But surely very often a fortunate one,” said Leon- 
tium. “ Without it, would there ever have been a hero ?” 

“ And perhaps,” returned the sage, with a smile, “the 
world might have been as happy if there had not.” 

“ Well, without arguing for an Achilles, would there 
have been a Homer ?” 

“I agree with you,” replied the master, more seriously. 

“ The desire of distinction, though often a dangerous, 
and often an unhappy desire, is likewise often, though 
I believe here sometimes were a better word, a fortunate 
one. It is dangerous in the head of a fool ; unhappy, 
in that of a man of moderate abilities, or unfavourable 
situation, who can conceive a noble aim, but lacks the 
talent or the means necessary for its attainment. It is 
fortunate only in the head of a genius, the heart of a 
sage, and in a situation convenient for its development 
and gratification. These three things you will allow do 
not often meet in one person.” 

“Yet,” said Theon, “how many great men has Athens 
produced.” 

“ But it is not a consequent that they were happy.” 

“'Happy or not happy, who would refuse their fate?” 

64 1 like that feeling,” replied the Gargettian ; “ nor 
do I dissent from it. The fate of greatness will always 
be enviable, even when the darkest storms trouble its 
course. Well-merited fame has in itself a pleasure so 
much above all pleasures, that it may weigh in the 
balance against all the accumulated evils of mortality. 
Grant, then, our great men to have been fortunate ; are 
they, as you say, so many ? Alas ! my son, we may 
count them on our fingers. A generation, the most 
brilliant in genius, leaves out of its thousands and mil- 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


43 


lions but three or four, or a dozen, to the worship, even 
to the knowledge of futurity.” - 

“ And these, only these three, four, or a dozen, have a 
right to the desire of distinction?” 

“ As to the right,” replied the sage, playfully, “ I 
mean not to dispute that. The right lies with all men 
in our democracy to sit in a tub, or to walk in a dirty 
tunic.” : Y " ' 

“ But you will allow of no end in ambition but an ab- 
surd one.” 

“ I have not expressed myself well, or you have not 
understood me well, if you draw that conclusion. I sure- 
ly have granted our great men to have had great ends 
of ambition.” 

“ But is it only great men, or men destined to be great, 
that may have such ends ?”’ 

“I allowed that others might; I only said that they 
would be unhappy in consequence. The perfection of 
wisdom, and the end of true philosophy, is to proportion 
our wants to our possessions, our ambitions to our capa- 
cities.” 

“ Then,” cried Metrodorus, “ I have substantially 
proved myself this morning to be no philosopher, when 
I chose a study beyond the reach of my pencil.” 

“ No,” said Leontium, playfully tapping his shoulder, 
“ the master will make a distinction between what is 
beyond the reach of our capacity, and what beyond the 
reach of our practice. Erostratus might never have 
planned the edifice he destroyed ; Ctesiphon could not 
always have planned it.” The smile that accompanied 
these words, lighted one yet more brilliant in the face of 
Metrodorus. Theon guessed that he felt more than ad- 
miration and more than friendship for this female dis- 
ciple. 


44 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


“ Your remark was well timed and well pointed,” 
said the master, u and has saved me some talking.” 

11 1 am not sure of that,” cried Sofron, stepping for- 
wards ; “ for though Leontium has so nicely worded 
the distinction between want of capacity and want of 
practice in the general, I should like to be told, how a 
man is to make this distinction between his own in par- 
ticular ? For instance, I have a fancy to turn philoso- 
pher, and supersede my master ; how am I to tell, at 
my first non-plus in logic or invention, whether the de- 
fect be in my capacity or my practice.” 

“ If it be only , in the last, I apprehend you will easily 
perceive it ; if in the first, not so readily. A man, if he 
set about the search, will quickly discover his talents ; 
he may continue it to his death without discovering his 
deficiencies. The reason is plain ; the one hurts our 
self-love, the other flatters it.” 

“ And yet,” interrupted Tlieon, “ I think, in my first 
interview with the philosopher of Gargettium, he re- 
marked, that thousands had the seeds of excellence in 
them, who never found them out.” 

“ I see you have a good memory,” returned the master. 

“ I did say so, and I think it still. Many might have 
been heroes, and many philosophers, had they had a de- 
sire to be either ; had accident or ambition made them 
look into themselves, and enquire into their powers ; but 
though jewels be hid in a sack of oats, they will never be 
found, unless the oats be shaken. Remember, however, 
we are now speaking of one class of men only — the am- 
bitious : and the ambitious will never have any seeds in 
them, bad or good, that will not generate and produce their 
proper fruit. Ambition is the spur, and the necessary spur 
of a great mind to great action ; when acting upon a weak 
mind it impels it to absurdity, or sours it with discontent ” 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


45 


<c Nay, then,” said Sofron, “ 'tis but a dangerous in- 
mate, as minds go ; and I, for one, had better have none 
of it, for I doubt I am not born to be an Epicurus, and I 
am certain I have no inclination to be a Gryphus.” 

“ Well,” said the master, “ we have at least to thank 
Gryphus for our morning’s dialogue. * If any of us wish 
to prosecute it farther, we may do it over our repast — the 
sun has reached his noon, so let us to the bath.” 

They left the temple, and crossing the gardens in an 
opposite direction from that by which Theon had enter- 
ed, soon reached a gate, which, to his surprise, opened on 
a court at the back of the Gargettian’s house, the same 
in which he had supped the preceding evening. 


46 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


# ^ y 

The fervours of the day had declined, when Theon 
issued to the street from the house of Epicurus : at that 
instant he met in the face his friend Cleanthes ; he ran 
to his embrace ; but the young stoic, receding with min- 
gled astonishment and horror — “ Ye gods ! from the 
house of Epicurus ?” 

“ I do not marvel at your surprise,” returned Theon, 
“ nor, if I recall my own feelings of yesterday, at your 
indignation.” 

“ Answer me quickly,” interrupted Cleanthes ; “ is 
Theon yet my friend ?” 

“ And does Cleanthes doubt it ?” 

“ What may I not doubt, when I see you come from 
such a mansion ?” 

“Nay, my brother,” said Theon, kindly throwing hifi 
arm round the neck of his friend, and drawing him on- 
wards, “ I have been in no mansion of vice, or of folly.” 

“ I do not understand you,” returned the stoic, but 
half yielding to his kindness ; “I do not know what to 
think or what to fear.” 

“ Fear nothing, and think only good,” said the Corin- 
thian. “ True, I come from the gardens of pleasure, 
where I have heard very little of pleasure, and a very 
great deal of virtue.” 

“ I see how it is,” returned the other ; “ you have lost 
your principles, and I, my friend.” 


A PEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 47 

u I do not think I have lost the first, and I am very 
sure you have not lost the last.” 

“ No l” exclaimed Cleanthes ; “ but I tell you, yes 
and his cheeks flushed, and his eyes flashed with indig- 
nation : “ I have lost my friend, and you have lost yours. 
Go !” he continued, and drew himself from the arm 
of Theon; “ Go ! . Cleanthes hath no fellowship with an 
apostate and a libertine.” 

“ You wrong me, and* you wrong Epicurus,” said his 
friend, in a tone of more reproach than anger. “ But I 
cannot blame you ; yesterday I had myself been equally 
unjust. You must see him, you must hear him, Clean- 
thes. This alone can undeceive you — can convince 
you ; convince you of my innocence and Epicurus’ virtue.” 

“Epicurus’ virtue? your innocence ? What is Epicu- 
rus to me ? What is he, or should he be to you ? Your 
innocence ? And is this fastened to the mantle of Epi- 
curus ? See him to be convinced of your innocence ?” 

“Yes, and of your own injustice. Oh, Cleanthes, 
what a fool do I now know myself to have been ! To 
have listened to the lies of Timocrates ! To have- be- 
lieved all his absurdities ! Come, my friend ! come 
with me, and behold the face of the master he blas- 
phemes !” 

“ Theon, one master, and but one ' master, is mine. 
To me, whether Timocrates exaggerate or even lie, it 
matters nothing.” 

“ It does, or it should,” said the Corinthian. “ W ill 
a disciple of Zeno not open his eyes to truth ? Not see 
an error, and atone for it, by acknowledging it ? I do 
not ask you to be the disciple of Epicurus — I only ask 
you to be just to him, and that for your own sake, more 
than mine, or even his.” 

“ I see you are seduced — I see you are lost,” cried the 


48 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


stoic, fixing on him a look, in which sorrow struggled 
with indignation. “ I thought myself a stoic, but I feel 
the weakness of a woman in my eyes. Thou wert as 
my brother, Theon ; and thou — thou also art beguiled 
by the Syren — left virtue for pleasure, Zeno for Epi- 
curus.” 

a I have not left Zeno.” 

“ You cannot follow both — you cannot be in the day 
and under the night at one and the same time.” 

“ I tell you, there is no night in the gardens of Epi- 
curus.” 

“ Is there no pleasure there,” cried the stoic, his mouth 
and brows curling with irony. 

“ Yes, there is pleasure there: the pleasure of wisdom 
and virtue.” 

“ Ah ! have you learnt the Gargettian subtleties so 
soon? You have doubtless already worshipped virtue 
under the form of the courtezan Leontium ; and wisdom 
under that of her master and paramour, the son of 
Neocles.” 

“ How little you know of either,” returned Theon ! 

“ But I knew as little yesterday.” 

Cieanthes stopped. They were before the stoic por-, 
tico. “ Farewell ! Return to your gardens ! Farewell !” 

“We do not yet part,” said Theon: “ Zeno is still 
my master.” He followed his friend up the steps. A 
crowd of disciples were assembled, waiting the arrival of 
their master. Some, crowded into groups, listened to 
the harangues of an elder or more able scholar : others 
walking in parties of six or a dozen, reasoning, debating, 
and disputing : while innumerable single figures, undis- 
turbed by the buzz around them, leaned against the pil- 
lars, studying each from a manuscript, or stood upon the 
steps with arms folded, and heads dropt on their bosoms, 


A FEW BAYS IN ATHENS. 


49 


wrapt in silent meditations. At the entrance of Cle- 
anthes, the favoured pupil of their master, the scholars 
made way, and the loud hum slowly hushed into silence. 
He advanced to the centre, and the floating crowd ga- 
thered and compressed into a Wide and deep circle. All 
eyes bent on the youth in expectant curiosity, for his 
countenance was disturbed, and his manner abrupt. 

Cleanthes was of the middle size : so slender, that 
you wondered at the erectness of his gait and activity of 
his motion. His neck was small ; his shoulders falling ; 
his head elegantly formed ; the hair smooth and close 
cut ; the forehead narrow, and somewhat deeply lined 
for one so young : the eye-brows marked and even, save 
a slight bend upwards, as by a frown, above the nose. 
The eyes blue ; but their gaze was too earnest, and their 
spirit too clear, to leave any of the melting softness so 
usual with that colour : — and yet there were moments 
when this would appear in them; and when it did, it 
went to the soul of him who observed it ; but such mo- 
ments were short and rare. The nose was finely and 
perhaps too delicately turned; the mouth, mild and al- 
ways in repose. The cheeks were thin, and though 
slightly flushed, the face had a look of paleness till en- 
thusiasm awoke, and deepened all its dyes. The whole 
expression had more spirituality and variety, and the 
manner more agitation, than you would have looked for 
in the first and favourite pupil of Zeno. The youth 
turned a rapid glance round the circle : he threw out his 
right arm ; the mantle dropt from his shoulder, and in a 
varied, piercing, and yet melodious voice, he began — 

" My friends ! my brothers ! disciples of Zeno and of 
virtue ! Give me your ears, and awake your faculties ! 
How shall I tell the dangers that surround you ? How 
shall I paint the demon that would ensnare you ? Ti- 


50 


A PEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


mocrates hath escaped from his enchantments, and told 
us that riot, and re veiling were in his halls, that impiety 
was in his mouth ; vice in his practice ; deformity in his 
aspect : and we thought that none but souls born for er- 
ror, already steeped in infamy, or sunk in effeminacy, 
could be taken in his toils and seduced by his example. 
But behold ! he hath changed his countenance — he hath 
changed his tongue : amid his revels he hath put on the 
garb of decency : in his riot he talks of innocence ; in 
his licentiousness of virtue ! Behold the youth ! they 
run to him with greedy ears — they throng his gardens 
and his porticoes. Athens, Attica, Greece, all are the 
Gargettian’s. Asia, Italy, the burning Afric and the 
frozen Scythia — all, all send ready pupils to bis feet. 
Oh ! what shall we say ? Oh ! how shall we stem the 
torrent ? Oh ! how shall we fence our hearts — how 
our ears from the song of the Syren ? To what mast 
shall we bind ourselves, to what pilot shall we trust, that 
we may pass the shores in safety without dashing on 
the rocks ? But why do I speak ? Why do I enquire? 
Why do I exhort ? Is not the contagion already among 
us? In the school of Zeno — in this portico — in this 
circle are there not waverers ? Yea, are there not apos- 
tates?” Emotion choked his utterance : he paused, and 
glanced his kindled eyes round upon the audience. 
Every breath was held in expectation ; each looked on 
the other in doubt, dismay, and enquiry. Theon’s heart 
beat quick and high : he advanced one step, and raised 
his arm to speak ; but Cleanthes, gathering his breath, 
again in a rapid voice continued. 

“ Does this silence speak conscious guilt, or startled 
innocence ? The last : I will believe the last. Praise 
be to the gods ! praise to our guardian, Minerva ! 
praise to our great, our glorious master, there are yet 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


51 


some sons left to Athens and to Greece, who shall re- 
spect, follow, and attain to virtue ! Some choice and 
disciplined souls, who shall stand forth- the light and or- 
nament of their age, and whose names shall be in ho- 
nour with those yet unborn. Rouse, rouse up your 
energies ! Oh, be firm to Zeno, and to virtue ! I tell 
you not — Zeno tells you not, that virtue is found in 
pleasures and repose. Resistance, energy, watchful- 
ness, patience, and endurance — these, these must be 
your practice, must be your habit, ere you can reach the 
perfection of your nature. The ascent is steep, is long, 
is arduous. To-day you must ascend a step, and to- 
morrow a step, and to-morrow, and to-morrow — and yet 
shall you be far from the summit, from rest, and from 
security. Does this appal you? Does this disgust 
you ? Go then to the gardens ! Go to the man of Gar- 
gettium — he who calls himself philosopher, and who 
loves and teaches folly ! Go, go to him, and he shall 
encourage and soothe you. He shall end your pursuit, 
and give you your ambition ! He shall show you virtue 
robed in pleasures, and lolling in ease ! He shall teach 
you wisdom in a song, and happiness in impiety ! But 
I am told, that Timocrates hath lied ; that Epicurus is 
not a libertine ; nor Leontium a prostitute ; nor the 
youth of the garden the ministers to their lusts. Be it 
so. Timocrates must answer to himself, whether his 
tale be the outpourings of indignant truth, or the subtle 
inventions of malevolence : with his own conscience be 
the secret : to us it matters nothing. We, who have 
nought to do with the doctrines of Epicurus, have nought 
to do with his practice. Let him who would vindicate 
the one, vindicate the other : let him come forth and 
say, that the master in the, gardens is not only pure in 
action, but perfect in theory. Let him say, that be 


52 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


worships virtue as virtue, and shuns vice as vice. Let 
him say, that he arms the soul with fortitude, ennobles 
it with magnanimity, chastens it with temperance, en- 
larges it with beneficence, perfects it with justice ; — and 
let him moreover say, that he does this, not that the soul 
so schooled and invigorated may lie in the repose of 
virtue, but that it may exult in its honour, and be fitted 
for its activity. Fie on that virtue which prudence alone 
directs ! Which teaches to be just that the laws may 
not punish, or our neighbours revenge : — to be enduring 
— because complainings were useless, and weakness 
would bring on us insult and contempt : — to be tempe- 
rate — that our body may keep its vigour, our appetites 
retain their acuteness, and our gratifications and sen- 
sualities their zest : — to serve our friends — that they may 
serve us ; — our country — because its defence and well- 
being comprehends our own. Why, all this is well — 
but is there nothing more ? Is it our ease alone we 
shall study, and not our dignity ? Though all my fel- 
low-men were swept away, and not a mortal nor im- 
mortal eye were left to approve or condemn — should I 
not here — within this breast, have a judge to dread, and* 
a friend to conciliate ? Prudence and pleasure ! Was 
it from such principles as these, that the virtue of Solon, 
of Miltiades, of Aristides, of Socrates, of Plato, of Xeno- 
phon, of all our heroes and all our sages, had its spring 
and its nourishment ? Was it such virtue as this that 
in Lycurgus put by the offered crown ? that in Leoni- 
das stood at Thermopylae ? that in the dying Pericles 
gloried that he had never caused a citizen to mourn ? 
Was it such virtue as this, that spoke in Socrates before 
his judges ? — that sustained him in his prison, and when 
the door was open, and the sails of the ready ship un- 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


53 


furled, made him prefer death to flight ; his dignity to 
his existence ?” 

Again the young orator paused, but his indignant soul 
seemed still to speak from his flashing eyes. His cheeks 
glowed as fire, and the big drops rolled from his forehead. 
At this moment the circle behind him gave way, and 
Zeno advanced into the midst : he stood by the head 
and shoulders above the crowd : his breast, broad and 
manly ; his limbs, cast in strength and symmetry : his 
gait, erect, calm, and dignified: his features, large, grand, 
and regular, seemed sculptured by the chisel for a colos- 
sal divinity : the forehead, broad and serene, was mark- 
ed with the even lines of wisdom and age ; but no harsh 
wrinkles nor playing muscles disturbed the repose of his 
cheeks, nor had sixty years touched with one thread of 
silver his close black hair: the eyes, dark and full, fringed 
with long strait lashes, looked in severe and steady wis- 
dom from under their correct and finely arched brows : 
the nose came from the forehead, strait and even : the 
mouth and chin were firm and silent. Wisdom undis- 
turbable, fortitude unshakeable, self-respect, self-posses- 
sion, and self-knowledge perfected, were in his face, his 
carriage, and his tread., 

He stopt before the youth, who had turned at his ap- 
proach. “ My son,” fixing his calm gaze on the work- 
ing countenance of his pupil, u what hath disturbed thy 
soul ?” Cleanthes laid a hand on his labouring breast : 
he made one violent effort for composure and speech : it 
failed. The hot blood forsook his checks : it rushed i 
again : again it fled : he gasped, arid dropt fainting at ‘ 
the feet of his master. 



5 ' 


54 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


* * * * VI. 

Theon rushed forward : he knelt ; he raised the 
head of his friend: breathless, agitated, terrified, he 
called his name with the piercing cry of agony and des- 
pair. All was commotion and confusion. The scholars 
pressed forward tumultuously ; but Zeno, raising his 
arm, and looking steadily round, cried “ Silence !” The 
crowd fell back, and the stillness of night succeeded. 
Then motioning the circle towards the street, to give 
way and admit the air, he stooped and assisted Theon 
to support his reviving pupil. Cleanthes raised his head, 
turned his eyes wildly around, and then fixed them on 
his master. 

“ Gently,” said Zeno, as the youth struggled in their 
arms for recollection, “ ’gently, my son.” But he made 
the effort : he gained his feet, and throwing out his arm 
to a pillar near him, turned his head aside, and for some 
moments combatted with his weakness in silence. His 
limbs still trembled, and his face had yet the hues of 
death, when, pressing his hand with convulsive strength 
against the pillar, he proudly drew up his form, turned 
his eyes again upon his master, and mustering his broken 
respiration — u Blame me, but do not despise me.” 

“ I shall do neither, my son : the weakness "was in 
the body, not the mind.” 

“ There has been want of command in both. I ask 
not to be excused.” Then turning round to his com- 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


55 


panions, “ I may be a warning, if not an example. The 
Spartans expose the drunkenness of their Helots to con- 
firm their youth in sobriety : let the weakness of Cle- 
anthes teach the sons of Zeno equanimity ; and let 
them say, If in the portico weakness be found, what shall 
it be in the gardens ? But,” he continued, addressing 
his master, “ will Zeno pardon the scholar who, while 
enforcing his nervous doctrines on others, has swerved 
from them himself?” 

u Thou judgest thy fault as thou shouldst judge it,” 
returned Zeno ; “but comfort, my son ! He who knows, 
and knowing can acknowledge his deficiency, though 
his foot be not on the summit, yet hath he his eye there. 
But say the cause, and surely it must be a great one, 
that could disturb the self-possession of my disciple.” 

“ The cause was indeed a great one ; no less than the 
apostacy of *a scholar from Zeno to Epicurus.” 

Zeno turned his eyes round the circle : there was no 
additional severity in them, and no change in his man- 
ner, or in his deep sonorous voice, when, addressing 
them, he said, “ If one, or more, or all of my disciples, be 
wearied of virtue, let them depart. Let them not fear 
upbraidings or exhortations ; the one were useless to you, 
the other unworthy of me. He who sighs for pleasure, 
the voice of wisdom can never reach, nor the power of 
virtue touch. In this portico truth will never be softened 
to win a sickly ear ; nor the severity of virtue, will it 
ever be veiled to win a feeble heart. He who obeys in 
act and not in thought ; he who disciplines his body 
and not his mind ; he who hath his foot in the portico, 
and his heart in the gardens ; he hath no more to do 
with Zeno, than a wretch sunk in all the effeminacy of 
a Median, or the gross debauchery of a Scythian. There 
is no mid -way in virtue ; no halting place for the soul 


56 


^ FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


but perfection. You must be all, or you may be nothing. 
You must determine to proceed to the utmost, or I en- 
courage ye not to begin. I say to ye, one and all, give 
me your ears, your understandings, your souls, and your 
energies, or depart /” Again he looked round upon his 
scholars. A long and deep silence succeeded : when 
young Theon, breaking through his awe and his timidi- 
ty, advanced into the centre, and craving sufferance with 
his hand, addressed the assembly. 

“ Though I should forfeit the esteem of Zeno and the 
love of his disciples, I have no choice but to speak. Ho- 
nour and justice demand this of me : first, to remove 
suspicion from this assembly; next, to vindicate the 
character of a sage, whom the tongue of a liar hath tra- 
duced ; and, lastly, to conciliate my own esteem, which 
I value beyond even the esteem of the venerated Zeno, 
and of my beloved Cleanthes.” He paused, and turn- 
ing to Zeno — “ With permission of the master, I would 
speak.” 

“Speak, my son : we attend.” Zeno retreated among 
his disciples ; and Cleanthes, anxious and agitated for 
liis friend, placed himself behind the 'screen of a pillar. 
With a varying cheek and a tremulous voice, the youth 
began : 

“ In addressing an assembly accustomed to the manly 
elocution of a Zeno, and the glowing eloquence of a Cle- 
anthes, I know I shall be forgiven by my companions, 
and I hope even by my severe master, the blushes and 
hesitations of timidity and inexperience. I open my 
mouth for the first time in public ; and in what a public 
is it ? Let not, therefore, my confusion be thought the 
confusion of guilt ; but, as it truly is, of bashful inexpe- 
rience. First, to remove suspicion from this assembly : — 
let not the scholar's look with doubt on each other : let 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 57 

not the master look with doubt on his scholars. I am 
he who have communed with the son of Neocles ; T 
am he who have entered the gardens of pleasure; l am 
he whom Cleanthes hath pointed at as the apostate h orn 
Zeno to Epicurus.” A tumult arose among the scholars. 
Surprise, indignation, and scorn, variously looked from 
their faces, and murmurect from their tongues. 

“ Silence !” cried Zeno, casting his severe glance 
round the circle. “ Young man, proceed.” 

This burst of his audience rather invigorated than 
dashed the youth. He freely threw forth his arm ; his 
eyes lighted with fire, and the- ready words flowed from 
his lips. “I merit not the hiss of scorn, nor the burst of 
indignation. Desist, my brothers, till my artless tale be 
told ; till you have heard, not my apology, but my jus- 
tification. Yesterday, at this hour, I left the portico, 
heated to fury by the philippic of Timocrates against 
Epicurus and his disciples ; indignant at the city that 
did not drive such a teacher from its walls ; against the 
gods, who did not strike him with their, thunders. Thus 
venting my feelings in soliloquy, after a long ramble I 
seated myself on the banks of Cephisus, and was awa- 
kened from a reverie by the approach of a stranger : his 
aspect had the wisdom of a sage, and the benignity of 
a divinity. I yielded him the homage of youthful re- 
spect and admiration : he condescended to address me. 
He gave me the precepts of virtue with the gentle and 
honied tongue of kindness and persuasion. I listened, I 
admired, and I loved. We did not conclude our walk 
until sunset: he bade me to his supper. I entered his 
house, and he told me I beheld Epicurus. Could I have 
drawn back 7 Should I have drawn back 7 No : my 
heart answers, no. Your sufferance, my friends ! Do 
not interrupt me ! Do not call me an apostate ! In 


m 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


the presence of the gods ; in the presence of my master, 
whom I fear as them ; in the presence of my own con- 
science, which I fear more than both, I swear that I am 
not so ! I mean not to explain or to justify the philoso- 
phy of Epicurus : I know but little of it. I only know — - 
I only affirm, that his tongue has given new warmth to 
my love of virtue, and new vigour to my pursuit of it : 
I only affirm, that persuasion, simple, ungarnished per- 
suasion, is in his lips ; benevolence in his aspect ; ur- 
banity in his manners ; generosity, truth, and candour, 
in his sentiments ; I only affirm, that order, innocence, 
and content, are in his halls and his gardens ; peace and 
brotherly love with his disciples ; and that, in the midst 
of these, he is himself the philosopher, the parent, and 
the friend. I see the sneer of contempt upon your lips, 
my brothers ; alas ! even on the unperturbed counte- 
nance of my master I read displeasure.” 

u No, my son,” said Zeno, 11 thou dost not. Continue 
thy artless tale. If there be error, it lies with the de- 
ceiver, not the deceived. And you, my sons and disci- 
ples, banish from your faces and your breasts every ex- 
pression and every thought unworthy of your honest 
companion, and your upright sect. For remember, if to 
abhor falsehood and vice be noble, to distrust truth and 
innocence is mean. My son, proceed.” 

“ Thanks for your noble confidence, my master : it 
makes me proud, for I deserve it. Yes ! even should I, 
as I perceive you apprehend, be deceived, I feel that this 
open confession of my present perfect conviction is ho- 
nourable both to myself and to Zeno. It proves that in 
his school I have learnt candour, though I have yet to learn 
discernment. And yet, methinks, however imperfect 
my youthful discernment, it is not now in error. If 
ever I saw simple, unadorned goodness ; if ever I heard 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


59 


simple, unadorned truth, it is in, it is from Epicurus. 
Again your sufferance, my friends ! Again your suffer- 
ance, my master ! I am not — I wish not to be, a disci- 
ple of the gardens : virtue may be in them — excuse me, 
virtue is in them ; but there is a virtue in the portico 
which I shall worship to my latest hour. Here, here I 
first learned — here I first saw to what a glorious height 
of greatness a mortal might ascend — how independent 
he might be of fortune f how triumphant over fate ! 
Young, innocent, and inexperienced, I came to Athens 
in search of wisdom and virtue. 1 Attend all the schools, 
and fix with that which shall give you the noblest aims/ 
said my father, when he gave me his parting blessing. 
He being an academician, I had, of course, somewhat 
imbibed the principles of Plato, and conceived a love for 
his school. On first hearing Crates, therefore, I thought 
myself satisfied. Accident made me acquainted with a 
young Pythagorean : I listened to his simple precepts ; 
I loved his virtues, and almost fell into his superstitions. 
From these Theophrastus awakened me ; and I was 
nearly fixed as a Peripatetic, when I met the eloquent, 
enthusiastic, Cleanthes. He brought me to the portico, 
where I found all the virtues of all the schools united, 
and crowned with perfection. But when I preferred 
Zeno, I did not despise my former masters. I still some- 
times visit the lyceum and the academy, and still the 
young Pythagorean is my friend. A pure mind should, 
I think, respect virtue wherever it be found: an ; d if 
then in thd lyceum and the academy, why not in the 
gardens ? Zeno, in teaching austerity, does not teach 
intolerance ; much less, I am sure, does he teach in- 
gratitude : and if I did not feel for the sage of Garget- 
tium both respect and love, I were the most ungrateful 
soul in Athens j and if, feeling both, I feared to acknow 


60 


A PEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


ledge both, I were the meanest. And now, my brothers, 
ask yourselves what would be your indignation at the 
youth, who for his vices being driven from this portico, 
should run to the lyceum, and accuse, to the sons of 
Aristotle, our great Zeno of that sensuality and wicked- 
ness which had here wrought his own disgrace, and his 
own banishment? Would ye not hate such a wretch? 
Would ye not loathe him ? Would ye not curse him ? 
My brothers ! this day have I learned such a wretch to 
be Timocrates. Is he here ? I hope he is. I hope he 
hears me denounce him for a defamer and an ingrate.” 

“ 5 Tis false !” cried Timocrates, bursting in fury from 
the crowd. “ J Tis false ! I swear” — 

“ Beware of perjury !” said a clear, silver voice, from 
without the circle. u Give way, Athenians ! ‘Tis for 
me to take up this quarrel.” 

The crowd divided. Every eye turned towards the 
opening. Theon shouted with triumph; Timocrates 
stood blank with dismay — for they recognised the voice 
and the form of the son of Neocles. 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


61 


# * * * VIL 

The sage advanced towards Theon : he laid a hand 
on either of his shoulders, and kissed his glowing fore- 
head. “ Thanks to my generous defender. Your art- 
less tale, my son, if it have not gained the ear of Zeno, 
hath fixed the heart of Epicurus. Oh, ever keep this 
candour and this innocence !” He turned his benign 
face round the circle : u Athenians ! I am Epicurus.” 
This name, so despised and execrated, did it not raise a 
tumult in the assembly ? No ; every tongue was chain- 
ed, every breath suspended, every eye rivetted with 
wonder and admiration. Theon had said the truth : it 
was the aspect of a sage and a divinity. The face was 
a serene mirror of a serene mind : its expression spoke 
like music to the soul. Zeno’s was not more calm and 
unruffled ; but here was no severity, no authority, no 
reserve, no unapproachable majesty, no repelling supe- 
riority : all was benevolence, mildness, openness, and 
soothing encouragement. To see, was to love ; and to 
hear, was to trust. Timocrates shrunk from the eye of 
his master : ,it fell upon him with a fixed and deep gaze, 
that struck more agony into his guilty soul, than had 
the flash of a Cleanthes, or the glance of a Zeno. The 
wretch sunk beneath it : he trembled ; he crouched ; 
he looked as he would have supplicated mercy; but 
his tongue cleaved to his palate, and shame withheld 
him from quite dropping on his knees. “ Go ! I will 


62 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


spare thee. Give way, Athenians !” The scholars 
opened a passage : again the sage waved his hand, and 
the criminal slunk away. 

u Your pardon, Zeno,” said the Gargettian ; “I know 
the youth : he is not worthy to stand in the portico.” 

“ I thank you,” returned the master, “ and my disci- 
ples thank you. The gods forbid that we should har- 
bour vice, or distrust virtue. I see, and I recant my er- 
ror : henceforth, if I cannot respect the teacher, I shall 
respect the man.” 

“ I respect both,” said Epicurus, reclining his head to 
the stoic. u I have long known and admired Zeno : I 
have often mixed with the crowd in his portico, and felt 
the might of his eloquence. I do not expect a similar 
return from him, nor do I wish to allure his scholars to 
my gardens. I know the severity of their master, and 
the austerity, may I say, the intolerance of his rules. 
But for one,” and he laid his hand upon the head of 
Theon, u for this one, I would bespeak clemency. Let 
not that be imputed to him as a crime, which has been 
the work of accident and of Epicurus*: and let me also 
say for him, as well as for myself — he has lost in the 
gardens no virtues, if a few prejudices.” 

“ Son of Neocles,” said Zeno, “ I feared you yester- 
day, but I fear you doubly to-day. Your doctrines are 
in themselves enticing, but coming from such lips, I fear 
they are irresistible. Methinks I cast a prophet’s eye on 
the map of futurity, and I see the sage of Gargettium 
standing on the pinnacle of fame, and a world at his 
feet. The world is prepared for this : the Macedonian, 
when he marched our legions to the conquest of Persia, 
struck the death-blow at Greece. Persian luxury and 
Persian effeminacy, which before crept, now come with 
strides upon us. Our youth, dandled on the lap of in- 


A PEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


63 


dulgence, shall turn with sickened ears from the severe 
moral of Zeno, and greedily suck in the honied philoso- 
phy of Epicurus. You will tell me that you too teach 
virtue. It may be so. I do not see it ; but it may be 
so. I do not conceive how there can be two virtues, nor 
yet how two roads to the same. This, however, I shall 
not argue. I will grant that in your system, as eluci- 
dated by your practice, there may be something to ad- 
mire, and much to love ; but when your practice shall 
be dead, and your system alone shall survive, where then 
shall be the security of its innocence ; where the antidote 
of its poison ? Think not that men shall take the good 
and not the evil; soon they shall take the evil and leave 
the good. They shall do more ; they shall pervert the 
very nature of the good, and make of the whole, evil un- 
mixed. Soon, in the shelter of your bowers, all that is 
vicious shall find a refuge. Effeminacy shall steal in 
under the name of ease ; sensuality and debauchery in 
the place of innocence and refinement ; the pleasures of 
the body instead of those of the mind. Whatever may 
be your virtues, they are but the virtues of temperament, * 
not of discipline ; and such of your followers as shall be 
like you in temperament, may be like you in practice : 
but let them have boiling passions and urgent appetites, 
and your doctrines shall set no fence against the torrent; 
shall ring no alarm to the offender. Tell us not that 
that is right which admits of evil construction — that that 
is virtue which leaves an open gate to vice. I said, that 
with a prophet’s eye I saw your future fame ; but such 
fame as I foresee can but ill satisfy the ambition of a 
sage. Your gardens shall be crowded, but they shall 
be disgraced ; your name shall be in every mouth, but 
every mouth shall be unworthy that speaks it ; nations 
shall have you in honour, but ere it is so, they shall be 


64 A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 

in ruin : our degenerated country shall worship you, and 
expire at your feet. Zeno, meantime, may be neglect- 
ed, but he shall never be slandered ; the portico may be 
forsaken, but shall never be disgraced ; its doctrines may 
be discarded, but shall never be misconstrued. I am not 
deceived by my present popularity. No school now in 
such repute as mine ; but I know this will not last. 
The iron and the golden ages are run ; youth and man- 
hood are departed ; and the weakness of old age steals 
upon the world. But, O son of Neocles 1 in this gloomy 
prospect, a proud comfort is mine : I have raised the 
last bulwark to the fainting virtue of man, and the de- 
parting glory of nations : — I have done more : — When 
the virtue and glory of nations shall be dead, and 
when in their depraved generations some solitary souls, 
born for better things, shall see and mourn the vices 
around them, here, in the abandoned portico, shall they 
find a refuge ; here, shutting their eyes upon the world, 
they shall learn to be a world to themselves ; here, steeled 
in fortitude, shall they look down in high, unruffled ma- 
jesty, on the slaves and the tyrants of the earth. Epi- 
curus ! when thou canst say this of the gardens, then, 
and not till then, call thyself a sage and a man of vir- 
tue.” He ceased ; but his full tones seemed yet to sound 
in the ears of his listening auditors. There was a long 
pause, when the Gargettian, in notes like the breathing 
flutes of Arcadia, began his reply : ; 

“ Zeno, in his present speech, has rested much of the 
truth of his system on its expediency ; I, therefore, shall 
do the same by mine. The door of my gardens is ever 
open, and my books are in the hands of the public ; to 
enter, therefore, here, into the detail or the expounding 
of the principles of my philosophy, were equally out of 
olace and out of season. ‘ Tell us not that that is right 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


65 


which admits of evil construction ; that that is virtue 
which leaves an open gate to vice.’ This is the thrust 
which Zeno now makes at Epicurus ; and did it hit, I 
grant it were a mortal one. From the flavour, we pro- 
nounce of the fruit ; from the beauty and the fragrance, 
of the flower ; and in a system of morals, or of philoso- 
phy, or of whatever else, what tends to produce good w 7 e 
pronounce to be good, what to produce evil, we pro- 
nounce to be evil. I might indeed support the argu- 
ment, that our opinion with regard to the first principles 
of morals has nought to do with our practice ; — that 
whether I stand my virtue upon prudence, or propriety, 
or justice, or benevolence, or self-love, that my virtue is 
still one and the same ; that the dispute is not about the 
end, but the origin ; that of all the thousands who 
have yielded homage to virtue, hardly one has thought 
of inspecting the pedestal she stands upon ; that as the 
mariner is guided by the tides, though ignorant of their 
causes, so does a man obey the rules of virtue, though 
ignorant of the principles on which those rules are found- 
ed ; and that the knowledge of those principles would 
affect the conduct of the man, no more than acquaint- 
ance with the causes of the tides would affect the conduct 
of the mariner. But this I shall not argue ; in doing so 
1 might seem but to fight you flying. I shall meet your 
objection in the face. And I say — that allowing the 
most powerful effects to spring from the first grounds of 
a moral system ; — the worst or the best, — that mine, if 
the best, is to be so judged by the good it does and the 
evil it prevents, must be ranked among the best. If, as 
you say, and I partly believe, the iron and the golden 
ages are past, the youth and the manhood of the world, and 
that the weakness of old age is creeping on us — then, as 
vou also say, our youth, dandled on the lap of indulgence, 


66 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


shall turn with sickened ears from the severe moral of 
Zeno ; and then I say, that in the gardens, and in the 
gardens only, shall they find a food, innocent, yet 
adapted to their sickly palates ; an armour, not of iron 
fortitude, but of silken persuasion, that shall resist the 
progress of their degeneracy, or throw a beauty even over 
their ruin. But, perhaps, though Zeno should allow 
this last effect of my philosophy to be probable, he will 
not approve it : his severe eye looks with scorn, not 
pity on the follies and vices of the world. He would 
annihilate them, change them to their opposite virtues, 
or he would leave them to their full and natural sweep. 

‘ Be perfect, or be as you are. 1 allow of no degrees of 
virtue, s 6 care not for the degrees of vice. Your ruin, if 
it must be, let it be in all its horrors, in all its vileness : 
Jet it attract no pity, no sympathy : let it be seen in all 
its naked deformity, and excite the full measure of its 
merited abhorrence and disgust.’ Thus says the sublime 
Zeno, who sees only man as he should be.. Thus says 
the mild Epicurus, who sees man as he is : — With all 
his weakness, all his errors, all his sins, still owning fel- 
lowship with him, still rejoicing in his welfare, and sigh- 
ing over his misfortunes : I call from my gardens tathe 
thoughtless, the headstrong, and the idle — ‘ Where do 
ye wunder, and what do ye seek ? Is it pleasure ? Be- 
hold it here. Is it ease ? Enter and repose.’ Thus do 
I court them from the table of drunkenness and the bed 
of licentiousness : I gently awaken their sleeping facul- 
ties, and draw the veil from their understandings : — 
‘ My sons! do you seek pleasure ? I seek her also. 
Let us make the search together. You have tried wine, 
you have tried love ; you have sought amusement in 
revelling, and forgetfulness in indolence. You tell me 
you are disappointed : that your passions grew, even 


A PEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


67 


while you gratified them ; your weariness increased 
even while you slept. Let us try again. Let us quiet 
our passions, not by gratifying, but subduing them : let 
us conquer our weariness, not by rest, but by exertion.’ 
Thus do I win their ears and their confidence. Step by 
step I lead them on. I lay open the mysteries of science ; 
I expose the beauties of art ; I call the graces and the 
muses to my aid ; the song, the lyre, and the dance. 
Temperance presides at the repast ; innocence at the 
festival ; disgust is changed to satisfaction ; listless- 
ness to curiosity ; brutality to elegance ; lust gives place 
to love ; Bacchanalian hilarity to friendship. Tell me 
not, Zeno, that the teacher is vicious who washes de- 
pravity from the youthful heart ; who lays the storm of 
its passions, and turns all its sensibilities to good. I 
grant that I do not look to make men great, but to make 
men happy. To teach them, that in the discharge of 
their duties as sons, as husbands, as fathers, as citizens, 
lies their pleasure and their interest : — and when the 
sublime motives of Zeno shall cease to affect an enerva- 
ted generation, the gentle persuasions of Epicurus shall 
still be heard and* obeyed. But you warn me that 1 
shall be slandered, my doctrines misinterpreted, and my 
school and my name disgraced. I doubt it not. What 
teacher is safe from malevolence, what system from mis- 
construction ? And does Zeno really think himself and 
his doctrines secure ? He knows not, then, man’s ig- 
norance and man’s folly. Some few generations, when 
the amiable virtues of Epicurus, and the sublime excel- 
lence of Zeno, shall live no longer in remembrance or 
tradition, the fierce or ambitious bigots of some new sect 
may alike calumniate both ; proclaim the one for a liber- 
tine, and the other for a hypocrite. But I will allow that 
I am more open to detraction than Zeno : that while 


68 


PEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


your school shall be abandoned, mine shall more proba- 
bly be disgraced. But it will be the same cause that 
produces the two effects. It will be equally the degene- 
racy of man that shall cause the discarding of your doc- 
trines, and the perversion of mine. Why then should 
the prospect of the future disturb Epicurus more than 
Zeno ? The fault will not lie with me any more than 
you : but with the vices of my followers, and the igno- 
rance of my judges. I follow my course, guided by 
what I believe to be wisdom ; with the good of man at 
my heart, adapting my advice to his situation, his dispo- 
sition, and his capacities. My efforts may be unsuccess- 
ful, my intentions may be calumniated ; but as I know 
these to be benevolent, so I shall continue those, unterri- 
fied and unruffled by reproaches, unchilled by occasional 
ingratitude and frequent disappointment.” He ceased, 
and again laying his hand on the shoulder of Theon, 
led him to his master. “ I ask not Zeno to admire me 
as a teacher, but let him not blame this scholar for loving 
me as a man.” 

“ I shall not blame him,” said the stoic, “ but I wish 
that I may not soon distrust him. I wish he may not 
soon forget Zeno, and forsake the portico.” 

The shades of evening now fell on the city, and the 
assembly divided. 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


69 


* * * * vm 

The sun was in its fervour, when Theon issued from 
one of the public baths. He was not disposed for rest, 
yet the heat of the streets was insufferable. “ I will seek 
the gardens,” he thought, “ and loiter in their cool shades 
until the master join me.” Reaching the house of the 
Gargettian, and the entrance to the gardens being shorter 
through it than by the public gate, he entered, and 
sought the passage he had before traversed. He how- 
ever took a wrong one, and, after wandering for some 
time, opened a door, and found himself in a library. 
Epicurus was sitting in deep study, with his tablets be- 
fore him ; his pen in one hand, his forehead supported 
on the other. Mefrodorus, on the opposite side of the 
room, was engaged in transcribing. 

Theon stopped, and, making a short apology, hastily 
retired. u Stay !” cried the master. Theon again en- 
tered, but did not advance much within the threshold. 

u When I bade you stay, I did not mean to fix you 
as door-keeper. Come in, and shut the door behind 
you.” Theon joyfully obeyed, and hurried to seize the 
extended hand of the sage. “ Since you have intruded 
on the sanctuary, I shall not drive you out.” He mo- 
tioned the youth to a place on his couch. 11 And now, 
what pretty things am I to say to you for your yester- 
day’s defence of the wicked Gargettian ? You should 
have come home with me last night, when we wer© 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


*0 

both hot from the combat, and then I could have made 
you an eloquent compliment in full assembly at the 
Symposium, and you would as eloquently have dis- 
claimed it with one of your modest blushes.” 

“ Then, truly, if the master had such an intention, I 
am very glad I did not follow him. But I passed the 
evening at my own lodgings, with my friend Cleanthes.” 

“ Trying to talk him into good humour and charity, 
was it ?” 

“ Something so.” 

“ And you succeeded ?” 

“ Why, I don’t know : he did not leave me in worse 
humour than he came.” 

“ Nay, then it must have been in better. Explana- 
tion always approaches or widens the differences be- 
tween friends.” 

“ Yes, but we also entered into argument.” 

“ Dangerous ground that, to be sure. And your 
fight, of course, ended in a drawn battle ?” 

“ You pay me more than a merited compliment, in 
concluding that to be a thing of course.” 

“ Nay, your pardon ! I pay you any thing but a com- 
pliment. It is not that I conclude your rhetoric and your 
logic equal, but your obstinacy and your vanity.” 

“ Do 5 r ou know, I don’t think myself either obstinate 
or vain,” said Theon, smiling. 

“ Had I supposed you did, I might not have seen oc- 
casion to give you the information.” 

“ But on what grounds do you think me obstinate 
and vain?” 

“ Your years ; your years. And do you think there 
is a man under twenty that is not both ?” 

“ Why, I should think an old man, at least, more ob- 
stinate than a young one.” 


A PEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


71 


u I grant you, when he is obstinate, which is pretty 
often, but not quite always ; and when he is vain, the 
same. But whilst many old men have vanity and ob- 
stinacy in the superlative degree, all young men have 
those qualities in the positive. I believe your share to 
be tolerably moderate, but do not suppose that you have 
no share at all. Well, and now tell me, was it not a 
drawn battle V 1 

“ I confess it was. At least, we neither of us con- 
vinced the other.” 

“ My son, it would have added one more to the seven 
wonders if you had. I incline to doubt, if two men, in 
the course of an olympiad, enter on an argument from 
the honest and single desire of coming at the truth, or if, 
in the course of a century, one man comes from an ar- 
gument convinced by his opponent.” 

“ Well, then, if you will allow me no credit for not 
being convinced, you may at least for my not being si- 
lenced, I, so young an arguer, and Cleanthes so prac- 
tised a one !” 

u You broke the ice beforehand yesterday in the por- 
tico,” said the philosopher, tapping his shoulder. “ After 
that generous instance of confidence, I shall not marvel 
if you now find a tongue upon all proper occasions. 
And trust me, the breaking of the ice is a very import- 
ant matter. Many an orator has made but one spring 
to the land, and his legs, after he had taken courage to 
make the ..first stroke. Cleanthes himself found this. 
You know his history ? He first appeared in Athens 
as a wrestler, a stranger to philosophy and learning of 
all kinds. - In our streets, however, the buzz of it could 
not fail to Teach him. He ran full speed into the school 
of Crates. His curiosity, joined to his complete igno- 
rance, gave him so singular an appearance, and pro- 


72 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


duced from him so marly simple questions, and blunder- 
ing replies, that he received from his fellow disciples the 
nickname of the Ass. But the ass persevered, and soon 
after, entering the portico, he applied with such intense 
diligence to the unravelling the mysteries of Zeno’s phi- 
losophy, that he speedily secured the esteem of his mas- 
ter, and the respect of his companions. But his timidi- 
ty was for some time extreme, and probably nothing 
but a sudden excitement could have enabled him to 
break through it. This, however, accidentally occurred, 
and he is now the ready and powerful orator that you 
know him.” 

“ I have often heard,” said Theon, “ and really not 
without some scepticism, the change that a few years 
have wrought in Cleanthes ; — a brawny wrestler ! who 
could believe it ? and a dull, ignorant Barbarian 

“ The world always adds marvel to the marvellous. 
A brawny wrestler he never was, though certainly some- 
thing stouter and squarer in person than he is now ; 
and though ignorant, he was not dull. Intense appli- 
cation, and, some say, the fasting of poverty, as well as 
temperance, rapidly reduced his body, and spiritualized 
his mind.” 

“ The fasting of poverty,” cried Theon, “ do you be- 
lieve this ?” 

“ I fear it is possible,” returned the master. “ At least 
it is asserted, that he possessed but four drachmas when 
he left the school of wrestling for that of philosophy ; 
and it does not well appear that he now follows any 
other trade than that of a scholar ; one which certainly 
brings very little nourishment to the body, whatever it 
may do to the mind.” 

u But his master ; do you think Zeno would suffer 
him to want the necessaries of life ?” . I 


A PEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


73 


t{ The actual necessaries, somehow or other, he cer- 
tainly has ; but I can believe he will make very few 
serve, and procure those few with some difficulty, rather 
than be indebted even to his master.” 

“ Or his friend !” said Theon. 

“ Nay, remember, you are not a friend of very long 
standing, and something liis junior in years.” 

“ But should that prevent him from giving me his 
confidence on such an occasion ?” 

“Perhaps not, but allow something to the stoic pride.” 

“ I can allow nothing to it here.” 

“ No, because it touches your own. 1 Thus do I tread 
on the pride of Plato] said Diogenes, setting his foot on 
the robe of the academic. 1 Yes , with the greater pride 
of Diogenes ,’ returned Plato. But I have made you 
grave, which was not my intention. Metrodorus, how 
go you on ?” 

“ Writing the last word. — There ! — And now,” rising 
and advancing towards Theon, “let me embrace the 
youth who so nobly took up the vindication of my in- 
sulted master. Perhaps you may not know how pecu- 
liarly I am indebted to you. Timoorates is the brother 
of Metrodorus.” 

“ How !” 

“ I blush to own it.” 

“You need not blush, my loved son; you nave done 
more than a brother’s duty towards him, and more than 
a disciple’s duty towards me. I suppose,” turning to 
Theon, “ as you are a stoic, you have not read the able 
treatises of Metrodorus in support of my doctrines, and 
defence of my character. In the last, indeed, he has 
done more than I wished.” 

“ I own I have not, but I will read them.” 

“ What ! in the face of Zeno?” 

7 


T4 


A FEW BAYS IN ATHENS. 


“ Aye, and of the whole portico.” 

“We need not doubt the young Corinthian's courage/' 
said Metrodorus, “ after his noble confidence yesterday.” 

“ I see the master has hot . been silent,” returned 
Theon, “ and that he has given me more praise than is 
my due.” 

“ Metrodorus can tell you that is not my custom,” 
said the Gargettiam “By Pollux ! if you continue your 
visits to the garden, you must look to be handled very 
roughly. I aim the blow at every fault I see ; and I 
have a very acute pair of. eyes. I find out the most se- 
cret sins— turn the souls of my scholars inside out ; so 
be warned in time !” 

“Ido not fear you,” returned the Corinthian. 

“ Not fear me, you rogue ?” 

“ No, I love you too well ; but,” continued Theon, 
“ let me now make my acknowledgments to the master 
for his coming forward so seasonably yesterday, and 
giving me the victory. How you astonished me ! I al- 
most took you a second time for a divinity.” . 

“I will tell you how it happened,” returned Epicurus: 
“ Chancing to be called into the street yesterday, just 
after you left the house, I saw your meeting with Cle- 
anthes ; and guessing from his first address, that you 
would have to stand a siege, I followed you to the por- 
tico, and took my place, unnoticed, among the crowd, 
ready, if occasion should require, to offer my succour.” 

“ And you heard then all that passed V 
« I did ” 

“ I beg your pardon for the digression,” said Theon ; 
“ but I think you have more forbearance and more can- 
dour than any man I ever heard of.” 

“ If it be so, these useful qualities have not been at- 
tained without much study and discipline ; for Zeno i 3 


75 


A FEW h'N ATHENS. 

mistaken in ‘thiiikihg all ’my virtues the children of tem- 
perament. I very early perceived candour to be the 
quality the most indispensable in the composition of a 
philosopher, and therefore very early set my whole ef- 
forts to the attaining of it. And when once I fairly en- 
gaged in the work, I did not find it either long or diffi- 
cult. I had naturally a mild temper, and a sensitive 
heart, afid these gifts were here of inconceivable use to 
ine. Feeling kindly towards my fellow creatures, 1 
could the easier learn to pity rather than hate their 
faults y to smile, rather than frown at their follies. 
This was a great step gained, but the ne£t was more 
difficult — "to be slow in pronouncing what is a fault, and 
what is a folly. Our superstition would haunt with the 
furies the man who should take his sister to wife, while 
the customs of Egypt would commend him. How has 
the astronomer been laughed at, who made the earth 
revolve round the stationary sun ; and yet who can say 
but the age may come, when this shall be established as 
a truth ? Prejudices, when once seen as prejudices, are 
easily yielded. The difficulty is, to come at the know- 
ledge of them. A thousand lectures had I read to my- 
self, ere I could calmly say, upon all occasions, It doe's 
not follow that the thing is, because I think it is ; and 
till I could say this, I never presumed to call myself a 
philosopher. When I had schooled myself into can- 
dour, I found I was possessed of forbearance ; for, in- 
deed, it is hardly possible to. possess the one without the 
other.” 

“I. cannot understand,” said Theon,’ “ how, with 
3'Our mildness, yOur candour, and your good humour, 
you have -so many enemies.” 

11 Am I not the founder of a new sect.” 

11 Yes, but so have been many others.” 


76 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


“ And you think I have more enemies than any 1 If 
it be so, perhaps in those peaceable qualities you have 
enumerated, you may seek the cause. Remember the 
cynics and stoics, (and I believe most of my enemies are 
either among them, or of their making,) do you think 
any of those three unpresuming virtues would secure 
their approbation ? They do not love to see a man 
take the place of a philosopher, without the airs of one, 
and, as you may perceive, I want these most entirely. 
Then you must remember also my popularity ; for of 
course my mildness, candour, and good humour, along 
with other agreeable virtues which shall be nameless, 
help to secure me a thousand friends ; and he who has 
many friends, must have many enemies, for you know 
he must be the mark of envy, jealousy, and spleen.” 

“ I cannot endure to think that it should be so,” said 
Theon 

“ Much less can I,” said Metrodorus. 

“ My sons, never pity the man who can count more 
than a friend for every enemy, and I do believe that I 
can do this. Yes, my young stoic, Zeno may have 
fewer enemies, and as many disciples, but I doubt if he 
have so many devoted children as Epicurus.” 

“ I know he has not,” cried Metrodorus, curling his 
lip in proud scorn. 

“ You need not look so fierce upon your knowledge,” 
said the master, smiling. 

“ You are too mild, too candid,” returned the scholar, 
“ and that is your only fault.” 

“ Then I am a most faultless person, and I only wish 
I could return the compliment to Metrodorus, but his 
lip curls too much, and his cheeks are too apt to kindle ” 

“ I know it, I know it,” said the scholar. 

“ Then why not mend it ?” 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


77 


11 Because I am not at all sure, but that it is better un- 
mended. If you would but turn more fiercely upon 
your enemies, or let me do so for you, they would re- 
spect you more, for they would fear you more.” 

11 But as I am not a god, nor a king, nor a soldier, I 
have no claim to fear ; and as I am a philosopher, 
I have no w r ish for it. Then, as to respect, do 
you really think yourself more worthy of it than your 
master ?” 

“Nay,” said Metrodorus, blushing, “that is too severe 
a rub.” 

“ Grant that it was merited. No, no, my son, we 
will convince all we can, we will silence as few as pos- 
sible, and we will terrify none.” 

“ Remember the exit of Timocrates,” said Theon, 
“ was not that made in terror ?” 

“ Yes ; but it was the work of his conscience, not of 
my eyes ; if the first had been silent, I imagine he would 
have stood the last very well.” 

“ Do not name the wretch,” cried Metrodorus, indig- 
nantly. “ Oh, my young Corinthian, did you know all 
the patience and forbearance that his master had shown 
towards him, all the pains he took with him, the gentle- 
ness with which he admonished him, the seriousness 
with which he warned him, the thousand times that he 
forgave him ; and then, at last, when he dared to in- 
sult his masters adopted child, the lovely Hedeia, and 
the indignant disciples thrust him from the gardens, he 
goes to our enemies, the enemies of his master, and feeds 
their malice with infernal lies. Curses of the furies on 
the wretch !” 

“ Fie ! how darest thou ?” said Epicurus, thrusting 
his scholar indignantly from him. “ Thy anger is un- 
worthy of a man, how much then of a brother ! Go, 


78 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


and recollect thyself, my son !” softening his voice, as 
he saw a tear in Metrodorus’s eye. u The Corinthian 
will accompany you to the gardens ; I will join you 
when I have concluded this treatise.” 

Metrodorus took the arm of Theon, and they left the 
apartment. 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


79 


* * * * IX. 

u Do not!” said Metrodorus to Theon, “take me as 
the best sample of the pupils of Epicurus. We are not 
all so hot-brained and hot-tongued 

“ Nay !” returned his companion, “ I am too young 
in philosophy to blame your warmth. In your place, I 
should have been as hot myself.” 

“ I am glad to hear it. I like you the better for the 
sentiment. But the sun scorches dreadfully, let us seek 
shelter” 

They turned into a thicket, and proceeding some way, 
caught on the still air the notes of a flute. They ad- 
vanced, and came„to a beautiful bank of verdure, bor- 
dered by the river, and shadowed by a group of thick 
and wide-spreading oaks. “ It is Leontium,” said Me- 
trodorus. “ No other in Attica can breathe the flute so 
sweetly.” They turned one of the trunks, and found 
her lying on the turf ; her shoulder leaning against a 
tree, and her figure raised on one elbow. Beside her 
was seated the black-eyed girl, whom Theon had be- 
fore seen; her taper fingers twining into a wreath the 
scented flowers, which were lightly thrown into her lap 
by the gay Sofron, who stood at some distance among 
the shrubs. 

“ Enough ! enough !” said the gentle voice of the girl, 
as the youth shook down in showers the leaves and 


80 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


nectareous odours of the over-ripe blossoms. “ Enough ! 
enough ! stay thy hand, thou heedless ravager !” 

“ Thank thee for thy words, although they chide me,” 
said the boy, letting go the bough which he had just 
seized, with a bound, light as that of the shrub when it 
sprung upward from his hand. “ Thou hast but one 
feeling in thy soul, Boidion ; and thy nature belies the 
sunny clime which saw its birth. Friendship is all to 
thee, and that friendship is but for one.” 

“ In truth, thou repayest his cares but coldly,” said 
Leontium, taking the pipe from her mouth, and smiling 
on the dark-haired maiden. 

11 But I repay not thine coldly,” said Boidion, kissing 
the hand of her friend. 

“ I am well punished for the neglect of my morning’s 
lecture,” said Sofron, impatiently, as he snatched his 
book from the ground, and turned away. 

“ Part not in anger, brother !” exclaimed Boidion. 
But the youth had vanished, and in his place Metrodo- 
rus and Theon stood before her. 

The startled girl was about to rise, when Leontium, 
laying her hand on her arm, “ Rest thee, thou timid 
fawn,” and the maiden resumed her seat. 

“ I rejoice,” said Theon, as he placed himself with 
Metrodorus by the side of Leontium, and took up the 
pipe which had fallen from her hand ; “ I rejoice to find 
this little instrument restored to Athens.” 

u Say not restored to Athens,” returned Leontium, 
u only admitted into the garden. I doubt our vain 
youth still remember the curse of Alcibiades, and look- 
ing in their mirror, vow that none but fools would play 
on it.” 

“ This recalls to me,” said Theon, “ that I have heard, 
among the various reports concerning the garden cur- 


A PEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


81 


rent in the mouths of the Athenians, very contradictory 
ones as to the place allowed in it to the sciences and libe- 
ral arts, and to music in particular.” 

“I suppose,” said Metrodorus, “that you heard our 
whole employment was eating, drinking, and rioting in 
all licentiousness.” 

“ True, I did hear so ; and I fear I must confess, half 
believed it. But I also heard your licentiousness de- 
scribed in various ways ; sometimes as grossly sensual, 
enlivened by no elegances of art ; veiled, adorned, if I 
may use the expression, by no refinement. In short, 
that Epicurus laughed as well at the fine arts as the 
grave sciences. From others, again, I learnt that music, 
dancing, poetry, and painting, were pressed into the ser- 
vice of his philosophy ; that Leontium strung the lyre, 
Metrodorus the harp, Hedeia moved in the dance, Boi- 
dion raised the song to Venus ; that his halls were co- 
vered with voluptuous pictures, the walks of his garden 
lined with indecent statues.” 

“ And you may now perceive the truth,” replied Me- 
trodorus, “ with yoiit own eyes and ears.” 

“But,” said Leontium, “ the young Corinthian may 
be curious to know the sentiments of our master, and his 
advice regarding the pursuit of the sciences and the libe- 
ral arts. I can readily perceive,” addressing herself to 
Theon, “ the origin of the two contradictory reports you 
have just mentioned. The first you would hear from 
the followers of Aristippus, who, though not acknow- 
ledging the name, follow the tenets of his philosophy, 
and have . long been very numerous in our degenerate 
city. These, because Epicurus recommends but a mode- 
rate culture of those arts, which by them are too often 
made the elegant incentives to licentious pleasure, ac r 
cuse him of neglecting them altogether. The cynics, 


82 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


and other austere sects, who condemn all that ministers 
to the luxury, ease, or recreation of man, exaggerate his 
moderate use of these arts into a vicious encouragement 
of voluptuousness and effeminacy. You will perceive, 
therefore, that between the two reports lies the truth. 
Every innocent recreation is permitted in the garden. 
It is not poetry, but licentious poetry, that Epicurus Con- 
demns ; not music, but voluptuous music ; not painting, 
but licentious pictures ; hot dancing, but loose gestures. 
Yet thus he displeases alike the profligate and the aus- 
tere ; for these he is too rhoderate, and for those too severe. 
With regard to the sciences, if it be said, that they are 
neglected among us, I do not say that our master, though 
himself versed in them, as in all other branches of know- 
ledge, greatly recommends them to our study. But 
that they are not unknown, let Polycenus be evidence. 
He, ono of the most amiable men of our school, and one 
most highly favoured by our master, you must have 
heard mentioned throughout Greece as a profound geo- 
metrician.” 

“ Yes,” replied Theon ; “ but I have also heard, that 
since entering the garden, he has ceased to respect his 
science.” 

“ I am not aware of that,” said Leontium, “ though I 
believe he no longer devotes to it all his time, and all 
his faculties. Epicurus called him from his diagrams, 
to open to him the secrets of physics, and the beauties 
of ethics ; to show him the springs of human action, and 
lead him to the study of the human mind. He taught 
him, that any single study, however useful and noble in 
itself, was yet unworthy the entire employ of a curious 
and powerful intellect ; that the man who pursued one 
line of knowledge, to the exclusion 6f others, though he 
6hould follow it up to its Very head, would never be 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS, 


S3 , 

either learned or wise : that he whp- pursues knowledge, 
should think no branch of it unworthy attention ; least 
of all, should he confine it to those which are unconnect- , 
ed. with the business, and add nothing to the pleasures of 
life ; that further not our acquaintance with ourselves, 
nor our fellows ; that tend not to enlarge the sphere of 
our affections, to multiply our ideas and sensations, nor 
extend the scope of our enquiries. On this ground, he 
blamed the devotion of Pp}yo 2 nus to a science that leads 
to other truths than those of virtue, to other study than 
that of man.” , . 

11 1 am obliged to you for the explanation,” said Theon ; 
u not because I could any longer have ( gi veil credit to the 
absurd reports of your master’s enemies ; but because, 
whatever opens to me the character and opinions of such 
a man, interests and improves me.” 

“ You will find this,” said Metrodcrus, “ the more you 
consider them. The life of Epicurus is a lesson of wis- 
dom. It is. by example, even more than precept, that lie 
guides his disciples. Without issuing commands, he 
rules despotically. His wishes are divined, and obeyed 
as laws ; his opinions are repeated as oracles; his doc- 
trines adopted as demonstrated truths. All is unanimity 
in the garden. We are a family of brothers, of which 
Epicurus is the father. And I say not this in praise of 
the scholars, but the master. Many of us have had bad 
habits, many of us evil propensities, many of us violent 
passions. That our habits are corrected, our propensi- 
ties changed, our passions restrained, lies all with Epi- 
curus. What I myself owe him, none but myself 
know. The giddy follower of licentious pleasure, the 
headstrong victim of my passions, he ha3 made me taste 
of the sweets of innocence, and brought me into the calm 
of philosophy. It is thua — thus, by rendering us happy, 


84 a few davs in athens. 

that he lays us at his feet — thus that he gains, and holds 
the empire of our minds — thus that by proving himself 
our friend, he secures our respect, our submission, and 
our love. He cannot but know his power, yet he exerts 
it in no other way, than to mend our lives, or to keep 
them innocent. In argument, as you may have ob- 
served, he always seeks to convince rather than sway. 
He is as free from arrogance as from duplicity ; he 
would neither force an opinion on the mind, nor conceal 
from it a truth. Ask his advice, and it is ever ready — 
his opinion, and he give3 it clearly. Free from prejudice 
himself, he is tender to that of others ; yet no fear of 
censure, or desire of popularity, ever leads him to hu- 
mour it, either in his lessons or his writings. Candour, 
as you have already remarked, is the prominent feature 
of his mind ; it is the crown of his perfect character. 1 
say this, my young Corinthian, who know him. His 
soul, indeed, is open to all ; but I have approached very 
near it, and considered its inmost recesses. Yes, I am 
proud to say it — I am one of those he has drawn most 
closely into his intimacy. With all my imperfections 
and errors, he has adopted me as a son ; and, inferior as 
I am in years, wisdom, and virtue, he deigns to call me 
his friend.” 

Tears here filled the eyes of the scholar ; he seemed 
about to resume, when a slight sound made the party 
turn their heads, and they saw the master at their side. 
“ Do not rise, my children, I will seat myself among 
you.” Theon perceived he had heard the closing sen- 
tence of Metrodorus, for the water glistened in his eyes 
as he fixed them tenderly upon him. “ Thanks, my 
son, for this tribute of thy gratitude ; I have heard thv 
eulogy, and I accept it joyfully. Let all men,” and he 
turned his eye upon Theon, u be above flattery; but let 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


85 


not a sage be above praise. He that is so is either ar- 
rogant or insincere. For myself, I own that the com- 
mendations of my friends fills me with triumph, as the 
assurance of their affection does with satisfaction. The 
approbation of our familiars, who are with us in our se- 
cret hours, hear our private converse, know the habits of 
our lives, and the bent of our dispositions, is, or should 
be to us, far more pleasing and triumphant than the 
shouts of a multitude, or the worship of the world.” 

There was a pause of some minutes, when Leontium 
took up the word. u I have been explaining, though 
very shortly and imperfectly, your views concerning the 
studies most proper to be pursued by men. I believe the 
Corinthian has some curiosity on this point.” 

Theon assented. 

“ Knowledge,” said the master, u is the best riches that 
man can possess. Without it, he is a brute ; with it, he 
is a god. But like happiness, he often pursues it with- 
out finding it ; or, at best, obtains of it but an imperfect 
glimpse. It is not that the road to it is either dark or 
difficult, but that he takes a wrong one ; or if he enters 
on the right, he does so unprepared for the journey 
Now he thinks knowledge one with erudition, and shut- 
ting himself up in his closet, he cons all the lore of anti- 
quity ; he fathoms the sciences, heaps up in his memo- 
ry all the sayings of the dead, and reckoning the value 
of his acquisitions by the measure of the time and labour 
he hath expended on them, he is satisfied he hath reach- 
ed his end, and from his retirement, looking down upon 
his more ignorant, because less learned brethren, he calls 
them children and barbarians. But, alas ! learning is 
not wisdom, nor will books give understanding. Again, 
he takes a more inviting road : he rushes into the crowd ; 
he rolls down the stream of pleasure; he courts the breath 

8 


86 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


of popularity ; he unravels or weaves the nddles of in- 
trigue ; he humours the passions of his fellows, and rises 
upon them to name and power. Then, laughing at the 
credulity, ignorance, and vice, he hath set his throne 
upon, he says, that to know the world is the only know- 
ledge, and to see to dupe it, is to be wise. Yet know- 
ledge of the world is not knowledge of man, nor to tri- 
umph in the passions of others, is not to triumph over 
our own. No, my sons, that only is real, is sterling 
knowledge, which goes to make us better and happier 
men, and which fits us to assist the virtue and happiness 
of others. All learning is useful, all the sciences are 
curious, all the arts are beautiful ; but more useful, more 
curious, and more beautiful, is the perfect knowledge 
and perfect government of ourselves. Though a man 
should read the heavens, unravel their laws and their 
revolutions ; though he should dive into the mysteries 
of matter, and expound the phenomena of earth and air; 
though he should be conversant with all the writings, 
and the sayings, and the actions of the dead ; though he 
should hold the pencil of Farrhasius, the chisel of Poly- 
cletes, or the lyre of Pindar ; though he should do one 
or all of these things, yet know not the secret springs of 
his own mind, the foundation of his opinions, the mo- 
tives of his actions ; if he hold not the rein over his pas- 
sions ; if he have not cleared the mist of all prejudices 
from his understanding ; if he have not rubbed off all 
intolerance from his judgments ; if he know not to 
weigh his own actions, and the actions of others, in the 
balance of justice— that man hath not knowledge ; nor, 
though he be a man of science, a man of learning, or 
an artist, he is not a sage. He must yet sit down, pa- 
tient, at the feet of philosophy. With all his learning, 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


87 


he hath yet to learn, and, perhaps a harder task, lie 
hath to unlearn.” 

The master here paused, but the ears of Theon still 
hung upon his lips. “ Do not cease,” he exclaimed ; “I 
could listen to you through eternity.” 

“ I cannot promise to declaim quite so long,” return- 
ed the sage, smiling. “ But if you wish it, we will fol- 
low out the topic when W2 have joined our other friends.” 

They rose, and bent their steps to the public walk. 


83 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


* * # ♦ X 

Epicurus stood in the midst of the expectant scholars. 
li My sons,” he said, 11 why do you enter the garden ? Is 
it to seek happiness, or to seek virtue and knowledge? 
Attend, and I will show you that in finding one, you 
shall find the three. To be happy, we must be virtuous ; 
and when we are virtuous, we are wise. Let us then 
begin : and first, let us for a while hush our passions 
into slumber, forget our prejudices, and cast away our 
vanity and our pride. Thus patient and modest, let us 
come to the feet of philosophy ; let us say to her, ‘ Be- 
hold us, scholars and children, gifted by nature with fa- 
culties, affections, and passions. Teach us their use 
and their guidance. Show us how to turn them to ac- 
count — -how best to make them conduce to our ease, 
and minister to our enjoyment.’ 

“ 6 Sons of earth,’ says the Deity, 1 you have spoken 
wisely ; you feel that you are gifted by nature with fa- 
culties, affections, and passions ; and you perceive that 
on the right exertion and direction of these depends 
your well-being. It does so. Your affections both of 
soul and body may be shortly reduced to two, pleasure 
and pain ; the one troublesome, and the other agreea- 
ble. It is natural and befitting, therefore, that you 
shun pain, and desire and follow after pleasure. Set 
forth then on the pursuit; but ere you start, be sure that 
it is in the right road, and that you have your eye on 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


89 


the true object. Perfect pleasure, which is happiness, 
you will have attained when you have brought your 
bodies and souls into a state of satisfied tranquillity. To 
arrive at this, much previous exertion is requisite ; yet 
exertion, not violent, only constant and even. And 
first, the body, with its passions and appetites, de- 
mands gratification and indulgence. But beware ! for 
here are the hidden rocks which may shipwreck your 
bark on its passage, and shut you out for ever from the 
haven of repose. Provide yourselves then with a skill- 
ed pilot, who may steer you through the Scylla and 
Oharybdis of your carnal affections, and point the steady 
helm through the deep waters of your passions. Behold 
her ! it is Prudence, the mother of the virtues, and the 
handmaid of wisdom. Ask, and she will tell you, that 
gratification will give new edge to the hunger of your 
appetites, and that the storm of the passions shall kindle 
with indulgence. Ask, and she will tell you, that sen- 
sual pleasure is pain covered with the mask of happi- 
ness. Behold she strips it from her face, ancL reveals' 
the features of disease, disquietude, and remorse. Ask, 
and she will tell you, that happiness is not found in tu- 
mult, but tranquillity ; and that, not the tranquillity of 
indolence and inaction, but of a healthy contentment of 
soul and body. Ask, and she will tell you, that' a hap- 
py life is like neither to a roaring torrent , nor a stag- 
nant pool , but to a placid and crystal stream , that 
flows gently and silently along. And now Prudence 
shall bring to you the lovely train of the virtues. Tem- 
perance, throwing a bridle on your desires, shall gradu- 
ally subdue and annihilate those whose present indul- 
gence would only bring future evil ; and others more 
necessary and more innocent, she shall yet bring down 
to such becoming moderation, as shall prevent all dis- 
8 * 


90 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


quiet to the soul, and injury to the body. Fortitude 
shall strengthen you to bear those diseases which even 
temperance may not be efficient to prevent ; those af- 
flictions which fate may level at you ; those persecutions 
which the folly or malice of man may invent. It shall 
fit you to bear all things, to conquer fear, and to meet 
death. Justice shall give you security among your fel- 
lows, and satisfaction in your own breasts. Generosity 
shall endear you to others, and sweeten your own nature 
to jmurselves. Gentleness shall take the sting from the 
malice of your enemies, and make you extract double 
sweet from the kindness of friends. Gratitude shall 
lighten the burden of obligation, or render it even plea- 
sant to bear. Friendship shall put the crown on your 
security and your joy. With these, and yet more vir- 
tues, shall prudence surround you. And, thus attended, 
hold on your course in confidence, and moor your barks , 
in the haven of repose.’ 

* u Thus says Philosophy, my sons, and says she not 
wisely ? Tell us, ye who have tried the slippery paths 
of licentiousness, who have given the rein to your pas- 
sions, and sought pleasure in the lap of voluptuousness ; 
tell us, did ye find her there ? No, ye did not, or ye 
would not now enquire of her from Epicurus. Come, 
then, Philosophy hath shown ye the way. Throw off 
your old habits, wash impurity from your hearts ; take 
up the bridle of your passions ; govern your minds, and 
be happy. And ye, my sons, to whom all things are 
yet new ; whose passions, yet in the bud, have never led 
you to pain and regret ; ye who have yet to begin your 
career, come ye also ! Philosophy hath shown ye the 
way. Keep your hearts innocent, hold the bridle of 
your passions, govern your minds, and be happy. But, 
my sons, methinks I hear you say, ‘ You have shown 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


91 


us the virtues rather as modifiers and correctors of evil, 
than as the givers of actual and perfect good. Happi- 
ness, you tell us, consists in ease of body and mind ; yet 
temperance cannot secure the former from disease, nor 
can all the virtues united ward affliction from the latter.’ 
True, my children, Philosophy cannot change the laws 
of nature ; but she may teach us to accommodate to 
them. She cannot annul pain ; but she can arm us to 
bear it. And though the evils of fate be many, are not 
the evils of man’s coining more ? Nature afflicts us 
with disease; but for once that it is the infliction of na- 
ture, ninety-nine times it is the consequence of our own 
folly. Nature levels us -with death ; but how mild is 
the death of nature, with Philosophy to spread the pil- 
low, and friendship to take the last sigh, to the protract- 
ed agonies of debauchery, subduing the body by inches, 
while Philosophy is riot there to give strength, nor friend- 
ship consolation, but while the flames of fever are heated 
by impatience, and the stings of pain envenomed by re- 
morse ! And tell me, my sons, when the body of the 
sage is stretched on the couch of pain, hath he not his 
mind to minister delight to him ? Hath lie not con- 
science whispering that his present evil is not chargea- 
ble to his own past folly, but to the laws of nature, which 
no effort or foresight of his could have prevented .? Hath 
he not memory to bring to him past pleasures, the plea- 
sures of a well-spent life, on which he may feed even 
while pain racks his members, and fever consumes his 
vitals ? Or, what if agony overpower his frame, and 
cripple his faculties, is there not death at hand to reach 
him deliverance ? Here, then, is death, that giant of 
terror, acting as a friend. But does he interrupt our en- 
joyments as well as our sufferings ? And is it for this 
we fear him ? Ought we not rather to rejoice, seeing 


92 


A PEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


that the day of life has its bright and its clouded hours, 
that we are laid to sleep while the sun of joy yet shines, 
before the storm of fate has broken our tranquillity, or 
the evening of age bedimmed our prospect? Death, 
then, is never our foe. When not a friend, he cannot 
be worse than indifferent. For while we are , death is 
not ; and when death is, we are not. To be wise, 
then, death is nothing. Examine the ills of life ; are 
they not of our own creation, or take they not their dark- 
est hues from our passions or our ignorance ? What is 
poverty, if we have temperance, and can be satisfied 
with a crust, and a draught from the spring ? — if we 
have modesty, and can wear a woollen garment as gladly 
as a tyrian robe ? What is slander, if we have no vani- 
ty that it can wound, and no anger that it can kindle ? 
What is neglect, if we have no ambition that it can dis- 
appoint, and no pride that it can mortify? What is 
persecution, if we have our own bosoms in which to re- 
tire, and a spot of earth to sit down and rest upon? 
What is death, when without superstition to clothe him 
with terrors, we can cover our heads, and go to sleep in 
his arms ? What a list of human calamities are here 
expunged — poverty, slander, neglect, disappointment, 
persecution, death. What* yet remains ? Disease ? 
That, too, we have shown temperance can often shun, 
and Philosophy can always alleviate. But there is yet 
a pain, which the wisest and the best of men cannot 
escape : that all of us, my sons, have felt, or have to feel. 
Do not your hearts whisper it ? Do you not tell me, 
that in death there is yet a sting ? That ere he aim at 
us, he may level the beloved of our soul ? The father, 
whose tender care hath reared our infant minds — the 
brother, whom the same breast hath nourished, and the 
same roof sheltered, with whom, side by side, we have 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


93 


grown like two plants by a river, sucking life from the 
same fountain and strength from the same sun — the 
child whose gay prattle delights our ears, or whose open- 
ing understanding fixes our hopes — the friend of our 
choice, with whom we have exchanged hearts, and 
shared all our pains and pleasures, whose eye hath re- f 
fleeted the tear of sympathy, whose hand hath smoothed 
the couch of sickness. Ah ! my sons, here is indeed a 
pain — a pain that cuts into the soul. There are mas- 
ters who will tell you otherwise ; who will tell you that 
it is unworthy of a man to mourn even here. But such, 
my sons, speak not the truth of experience or philoso- 
phy, but the subtleties of sophistry and pride. He who 
feels not the loss, hath never felt the possession. He 
who knows not the grief, hath never known the joy. 
See the price of a friend in the duties we render him, 
and the sacrifices we make to him, and which, in 
making, we count not sacrifices, but pleasures. We 
sorrow for his sorrow ; we supply his wants, or, if we 
cannot, we share them. We follow him to exile. We 
close ourselves in his prison ; we soothe him in sickness ; 
we strengthen him in death : nay, if it be possible, we 
throw down our life for his. Oh ! what a treasure is 
that for which we do so much ! And is it forbidden us 
to mourn its loss ? If it be, the power is not with us to 
obey. Should we, then, to avoid the evil, forego the 
good ? Shall we shut love from our hearts, that we 
may not feel the pain of his departure ? No ; happi- 
ness forbids it. Experience forbids it. Let him who 
hath laid on the pyre the dearest of his soul, who hath 
washed the urn with the bitterest tears of grief — let him 
say if his heart hath ever formed the wish that it had 
never shrined within it him whom he now deplores. 
Let him say if the pleasures of the sweet communion of 


94 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


his former days doth not still live in his remembrance. 
If he love not to recall the image of the departed, the 
tones of his voice, the words of his discourse, the deeds of 
his kindness, the amiable virtues of his life. If, while 
he weeps the loss of his friend, he smiles not to think 
that he once possessed him. He who knows not friend- 
ship, knows not the purest pleasure of earth. Yet if 
fate deprive us of it, though we grieve, we do not sink ; 
Philosophy is still at hand, and she upholds us with for- 
titude. And think, my sons, perhaps in the very evil 
we dread, there is a good ; perhaps the very uncertainty 
of the tenure gives it value in our eyes ; perhaps all our 
pleasures take their zest from the known possibility of 
their interruption. What were the glories of the sun, if 
we knew not the gloom of darkness? What the re- 
freshing breezes of morning and evening, if we felt not 
the fervours of noon ? Should we value the lovely flower, 
if it bloomed eternally ; or the luscious fruit, if it hung 
always on the bough ? Are not the smiles of the hea- 
vens more beautiful in contrast with their frowns, and 
the delights of the seasons more grateful from their vi- 
cissitudes ? Let us then be slow to blame nature, for 
perhaps in her apparent errors there is hidden wisdom. 
Let us not quarrel with fate, for perhaps in our evils lie 
the seeds of our good. Were our body never subject to 
sickness, we might be insensible to the joy of health. 
Were our life eternal, our tranquillity might sink into 
inaction. Were our friendship not threatened with in- 
terruption, it might want much of its tenderness. This, 
then, my sons, is our duty, for this is our interest and 
our happiness ; to seek our pleasures from the hands of 
the virtues, and for the pain which may befall us, to 
submit to it with patience, or bear up against it with for- 
titude. To ivalk, in short , through life innocently and 


A PEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


9K 


tranquilly ; and to look on death as its gentle termi- 
nation , which it becomes us to meet with ready minds , 
neither regretting the past, nor anxious for the future .' 11 

The sage had scarcely ceased, when a scholar ad- 
vanced from the crowd, and bowing his head with reve- 
rence, stooped and touched the knees of his master. 
“ Refuse not my homage,” he said, “ nor call the ex 
pression of it presumptuous.” Epicurus raised him in 
his arms. “ Colotes, I am more proud of the homage 
of thy young mind, than I should be of that of the as- 
sembled crowds of Olympia. May thy master, my 
son, never lose his power over it, as I feel that he will 
never abuse it.” 


96 


A PEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


* * * * XI. 

The sun had far declined from his meridian, yet no 
cool breeze tempered the fervours of the heat. The air 
was chained in oppressive stillness, when suddenly a 
bustling wind shook the trees, and a low growling re- 
verberated round the horizon. The scholars retired be- 
fore the threatening storm ; but Theon, his ear still filled 
with the musical voice of the sage, and his heart imbued 
with his gentle precepts, lingered to feed alone upon the 
thoughts they had awakened in him. “ How mad is 
the folly of man,” he said, as he threw his back against 
a tree. “ Professing to admire wisdom and love virtue, 
and yet ever persecuting and slandering both. How 
vain is it to look for credit by teaching truth, or to seek 
fame by the road of virtue !” 

“ Thy regret is idle, my son,” said a well known 
voice in his ear. 

“ Oh ! my guardian spirit !” cried the startled youth — 
“ Is it you ?” 

u I linger,” said the Gargettian, “ to watch the ap- 
proach of the storm, and I suppose you do the same.” 

“ No,” returned the youth ; “ I hardly heeded the 
heavens.” 

" They are singular, however, at this moment.” 
Theon looked where the sage pointed ; a dark mass of 
vapours was piled upon the head of Hymethus, from 
which two columns, shooting forth like the branches of 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


97 


some giant oak, spread themselves over the sky. The 
opposing sun, fast travelling to the horizon, looked red 
through the heated atmosphere, and flashed a deep glare 
on their murky sides. Soon half the landscape was 
blackened with the sinking clouds, that each moment 
increasing in bulk and density, seemed to touch the bo- 
som of the earth. The western half glowed with a bril- 
liant light, like molten gold. The distant outline was 
marked with a pencil of fire, while the gardens and vil- 
las that speckled the plain, seemed illuminated in ju- 
bilee. 

“ See,” said the sage, stretching his hand towards the 
gilded scene ; “ see the image of that fame which is not 
founded in virtue. Thus bright may it shine for a mo- 
ment, but the cloud of oblivion or infamy comes fast to 
cover its glory.” 

u Is it so ?” said Theon. “ Do not the vile of the 
earth fill the tongues of men, and are not the noble for- 
gotten ? Does not the titled murderer inscribe his name 
on the tablets of eternity, with the sword which is dipped 
in the blood of his fellows ? And does not the man who 
has spent his youth, and manhood, and age, in the courts 
of wisdom — who has planted peace at the hearth, and 
given truth to the rising age, does he not go down to the 
grave in silence, his bones unhonoured, and his name 
forgotten ?” 

“ Possibly his name ; but, if he have planted peace at 
the hearth, and given truth to the rising age, surely not 
his better part — his virtues. Do not confound noise with 
fame. The man who is remembered, is not always ho- 
noured ; and reflect, what a man toils for, that probably 
will he win. The titled murderer, who weaves his fate 
with that of empires, will with them go down to posteri- 
ty. The sage, who does his work in the silence of re- 


98 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


tirement, unobserved in his own generation, will pass 
into the silence of the grave, unknown to the future.” 

. “ But suppose he be known. How few worshippers 
should crowd to his shrine, and what millions to that of 
the other !” 

“ And those few, my som who are they ? The wise 
of the earth, the enlightened patriot, the discerning phi- 
losopher. And who are the millions 1 The ignorant, 
the prejudiced, and the idle. Nor yet, let us so wrong 
the reason of our species, as to say, that they always 
give honour to the mischievous rather than the useful — 
gratitude to their oppressors, rather than their benefactor. 
In instances they may be blind, but in the gross they 
are just. The splendour of action, the daring of enter- 
prise, or the glitter of majesty, may seize their imagina- 
tion, and so drown their judgment ; but never is it the 
tyranny of power, the wantonness of cruelty, the bru- 
tality of vice, which they adore, any more than it is the 
innocence and usefulness of virtue, which they despise. 
The united experience of mankind has pronounced vir- 
tue to be the great good : nay, so universal is the con- 
viction, that even those who insult her in their practice, 
bow to her in their understanding. Man is for the most 
part more fool than knave, more weak than depraved in 
action, more ignorant than vicious in judgment ; and 
seldom is he so weak and so ignorant, as not to see his 
own interest, and value him who promotes it. But say, 
that he often slanders the virtuous, and persecutes the 
wise ; he does it more in error than from depravity. He 
is credulous, and on the report of malice, takes virtue for 
hypocrisy ; — he is superstitious, and some of the truths 
of wisdom appear to him profane. Say he does homage 
to vice — you will find when he does it, he believes her 
to be virtue. Hypocrisy has masked her deformity, or 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


99 


talent decked her with beauty. Is here, then, subject 
for wrath ? Rather, surely, for compassion. Is here 
matter for disgust ? Rather, surely, for exertion. The 
darker the ignorance, the more praise to the sage who 
dispels it the deeper the prejudice, more fame to the 
courage which braves it. But may the courage be vain? 
May the sage fall the victim of the ignorance he com- 
bats? He may; he often has. But ere he engage, 
knows he not the risk ? The risk is to himself ; the 
profit to mankind. To a benevolent soul, the odds is 
worth the throw ; and though it be against him at the 
present, he may win it in the future. The sage, whose 
vision is cleared from the mists of prejudice, can stretch 
it over the existing age, to the kindling horizon of the 
succeeding, and see, perhaps, unborn generations weep- 
ing the injustice of their fathers, and worshipping those 
truths which they condemned. Or is it otherwise? 
Lives he in the old age of the world, and does he see the 
stream of time flowing through a soil yet more rank with 
prejudice and evil ? Say, then — were the praise of such 
a world a fit object of his ambition, or shall he be jealous 
of the fame which ignorance yields to the unworthy ? 
But any way, my son, it is not the voice of fame that 
we should seek in the practice of virtue, but the peace of 
self-satisfaction. " The object of the sage is to make him- 
self independent of all that he cannot command within 
himself. Yet, when I speak of independence, I mean 
not indifference ; while we make ourselves sufficient for 
ourselves, we need not forget the crowd about us. We 
are not wise in the contempt of others, but in calm ap- 
probation of ourselves.” 

“ Still dost thou droop thy head, my son ?” said the 
gentle philosopher, laying a hand on the shoulder of his 
young friend. 


100 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


“Your words sink deep into my soul,” replied Theon; 
11 yet they have not chased the melancholy they found 
there. I have not such a world in myself as to be in- 
dependent of that about me, nor can I forgive the of- 
fences of my fellows, merely because they commit them 
from ignorance. Nay, is not their very ignorance often 
a crime, when the voice of truth is whispering in their 
ear ?” 

“ And if they do not hear her whisper in the one ear, 
it is because prejudice is crying aloud into the other.” 

“ Prejudice ! I hate prejudice,” said Theon. 

“ And so do I,” said the master. 

“ Yes, but I am provoked with it.” 

“ I suspect that will not remove the evil.” 

“ Nothing will remove it. It is inherent in men’s 
nature.” 

“ Then as we are men, it may be inherent in ours. 
Trust me, my son, it is better to correct ourselves, than 
to find fault with our neighbours.” 

“ But is it not allowed to do both ? Can we help 
seeing the errors of the world in which we live, and see- 
ing, can we help being angry at them ?” 

“ Certainly not the seeing them, but I hope, very pos- 
sibly, the being angry with them. He that loses temper 
with the folly of others, shows that he has folly himself. 
In which case they have as much right to complain of 
his, as he of theirs. And have I not been trying to 
show you, that when you are wise you will be independ- 
ent of all that you cannot command within yourself? 
You say you are not so now. I admit it, but when you 
are wise you will be so. And till you are wise, you 
have surely no title to quarrel with another’s ignorance.” 

“ I can never be independent of my friends,” returned 
Theon. “ I must ever feel the injustice done to them 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 101 

though I might be regardless of that which affected 
merely myself.” 

“ Why so ? What would enable you to disregard 
that done to yourself?” 

“ Conscious innocence. Pride, if you will. Contempt 
of the folly and ignorance of my judges ” 

“ Well, and are you less conscious of the innocence 
of your friend ? If you are, where is your indignation ? 
And if you are not, have you less pride for him than for 
yourself ? Do you respect that folly and ignorance in 
his judges, that you despise in your own.” 

“ I believe it will not stand argument,” said Theon. 
“ But you must forgive me if, when I contemplate Epi- 
curus, I feel indignant at the slander which dares to 
breathe upon his purity.” 

“ And do you think you were yourself an object of 
indignation, when you spoke of him as a monster of 
vice ?” 

“ Yes, I feel I was.” 

“ But he felt otherwise,” said the master, u and which, 
think you, is likely to feel most wisely ?” 

u Ah ! I hope it is Epicurus,” said the youth, snatch- 
ing his instructor’s hand. This conversation was here 
interrupted by the bursting of the storm. The fire flash- 
ed round the horizon, the thunder cracked over the ze- 
nith, and the first big drops fell from the burdened 
clouds. “We are near the Temple,” said the sage, “ let 
us seek shelter under its portico. We may watch the 
storm there, without a wet skin.” They had hardly 
gained it, when the rain poured down in torrents. Ilis- 
sus, whom the burning sun had of late faded into a fee- 
ble rill, soon filled and overflowed his bed ; wave after 
wave, in sudden swell, came roaring down, as if he now 
first burst to life from the womb of his parent moun 
9 * 


102 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


tain. Bat the violence of the storm soon spent its 
strength. Already the thunder broke with longer in- 
tervals, and a faint light, like the opening of morning, 
gleamed over the western heavens. At length the sun 
cleared his barrier of clouds. He stood on the verge of 
the waves, and shot his level rays over the blazing Sa- 
lamis and the glistering earth. The sage stood with his 
young friend in silent admiration, when the eye of the 
latter was attracted by a horseman, who came full gal- 
lop over the plain, directly towards thorn. The object 
of his attention had nearly reached the river, when he 
perceived the rider to be a female. The swift feet of 
the steed now touched the opposing brink. “ Great 
Jove, he will not attempt the passage,” exclaimed the 
youth, as she sprung towards the river. “ Stop, stop,” 
he cried. She checked the rein, but too late. The 
anirqal, accustomed to the passage, and blinded by speed, 
plunged into the flood. Theon tore his robe from his 
shoulders, and was about to make the plunge on his 
side, when he was grasped by Epicurus. 

“ Be not rash. The horse is strong, and the ridei 
skilful.” The voice that uttered these words was calm 
and distinct, but its wonted music was changed into the 
deep tone of suppressed horror. Even at that moment, 
the accent struck Theon’s ear. 

“ Do you know her ? Is she } r our friend ? Is she 
dear to you ? If so” — -he made another effort to throw 
himself forward, but was still restrained by Epicurus. 
He looked into the philosopher’s face. There was no 
motion in it, save a quivering round the mouth, while 
the eyes were fixed in aching gaze on the struggling 
animal. He breasted the water midway, when seem- 
ingly frightened at the rapidity of the current, he tried 
to turn. The rider saw the danger, she curbed the 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


103 


rein, she tried with voice and effort to urge him to the 
conflict. Theon looked again at the sage. He saw he 
had loosened his mantle, and was prepared to try the 
flood. “ I conjure you, by the gods !” said the youth, 
“ what is my life to yours ?” He grasped the sage in 
his turn. * “ Let me save her ! I will save her — I swear 
it.” They both struggled a moment for the leap, if I 
swear,” continued Theon, with furious energy, “ that if 
you go, I will follow.” He made another effort, and 
dashed from the hold of Epicurus into the river. Na- 
turally strong, he was doubly so at this moment. He 
felt not fear, he saw not danger. In a moment he was 
in the centre of the current — another stroke, and he had 
seized the mane of the steed. But the terrified animal 
even then gave way to the stream. The rider still 
struggled for her seat. But her strength fast failed, she 
stretched out her hand with a feeble cry of despair. 
Theon shot forward yet swifter than the tide ; he drove 
with a shock against the horse, and caught with one 
arm the expiring girl. Then, half yielding to the cur- 
rent, he parted with the other the roaring waters, and 
with effort almost superhuman, grappled with their fury. 
Panting, choking, bewildered, yet never relaxing, he 
reached, but he knew not how, the land. When he 
recovered recollection, he found himself lying on a 
couch, in the arms of Epicurus. “ Where am I,” he 
said, “ and where is the lovely girl ?” 

“ Safe, safe, as her generous deliverer. Oh, my son ! 
now indeed my son, when I owe to thee my Hedeia.” 

« Was it your adopted child, then,” cried the youth, 
with a' shout of delirious joy, as he threw himself on the 
breast of the sage. “ But tell me,” he said, rising and 
looking round on Metrodoras, who, with two other 
scholars, stood beside the couch, “ how came I here ?” 


104 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


“ I believe,” said Metrodorus, “ the master swam to 
your aid — at least, we found him lifting you and Hedeia 
from the water.” 

' “ I watched your strength, my son, and reserved mine 
till it should fail ; when I observed it do so, I came to 
your assistance. Now, compose yourself awhile, and I 
vill go and put myself into a dry tunic.” 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHEJfS. 


05 


* * * * XII. 

Theon, rising recruited from the warm bath, and 
his limbs being well rubbed with ointments, joined the 
party at supper in health and spirits. It consisted of the 
master, Lieontium, Metrodorus, and tw T o other scholars, 
whose persons were new to him. There w r as something 
in the gentle manners of one, not unmixed with a little 
awkwardness, the grave repose of his features, the ab- 
stract thought that lined his forehead, and fixed his mild 
eye, that led him to guess it was Polyoenus. The other, 
whose gait had the dignity of manhood, and the polish 
of art ; whose face, without being handsome, had that 
beauty which refined sentiment and a well-stored mind 
always throw more or less into the features ; v T hose 
whole appearance showed at once the fine scholar and 
the amiable man, fixed instantly Theon’s attention and 
curiosity. All received the youth with congratulations, 
and Metrodorus, as he held him in his embrace, joking- 
ly upbraided" him as a greedy and barbarous invader, 
■who was carrying off, in his single person, the whole 
love and honour of the garden. “ But yet,” he added, 
« have a care ; for I doubt you have secured the envy 
also.” 

“ 1 believe it,” said Theon. u At least I know I 
should envy you, or any of your fraternity, who had 
risked his life, aye, or lost it, in service of your master, 
or any your master loved.” 


106 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


“ Well said, my dear youth,” said the stranger, taking 
his hand ; “ and when you have seen more of the 
nymph you so gallantly rescued, you will perhaps think 
the man a no less object of envy, who should risk his 
life for her, or any she loved.” 

They moved to the table, when Leontium whispered 
Theon, “ Hermachu3 of Mytelene, the bosom friend of 
Epicurus.” 

“ I thank you,” replied Theon, “ you have well read 
my curiosity.” * 

The party were about to plkce themselves, when a 
sound in the passage turned all eyes to the door. “ Yes, 
nurse, you may just peaceably let. me take my own way. 
Go, go, I am quite well, quite warm, and quite active. 
I tell you, you have rubbed my skin off — would you rub 
away my flesh too ?” And in came, with the light foot 
of a nymph of Dian, the young Hedeia. A white gar- 
ment, carelessly adjusted, fell, with inimitable grace, 
over her airy form ; in equal negligence, her long hair, 
still moist from the recent waves, and dishevehed by the 
anxious rubbing of her careful attendant, hung down 
her shoulders to her zone. Her face, though pale from 
late alarm and fatigue, beaming with life and joy. Her 
full dark eyes sparkling with intelligence, and her lips, 
though their coral was slightly faded, lovely with smiles. 
In one hand she held a goblet, in the other a chaplet of 
myrtle. “ Which is my hero?” she asked, in a voice 
more sweet than the evening zephyr, as she looked 
round the board. “ Am I right ?” approaching Theon. 
The youth, as he gazed on the lovely face, forgot to an- 
swer. 11 Nay, is it a statue ?” leaning forward, and 
gazing in her turn, as if in curious inspection. 

11 No, a slave,” said Theon, half smiling, half blusm 




107 


< 4 i ' 

*> 

A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 

mg, as he stooped his knee, while she placed the garland 
on his head. 

“ I come to pledge you,” she* said, putting the cup to 
her lips, “ and to bid you pledge me,” presenting it with 
bewitching grace to the youth. He took it in' speech- 
less ecstasy from her taper fingers, and turning that side 
to his mouth which had received the touch of her’s, 
quaffed off at once the draught of wine and love. 

“ Beware,” said a voice in his ear : “ it is the cup of 
Circe.” He turned, Polyoenus stood behind him ; but 
when he saw his motionless features, he could hardly 
believe the whisper had been uttered by him. 

“ I know,” continued the fair one, pointing to the ta- 
ble, “ there is but cold beverage here for a drowned man. 
My wise father may know to give comfort to the mind, 
but come to my good nurse, when you want the comfort 
of the body. She is the most skilful compounder of 
elixirs, philters, and every palateable medicine, that you 
might haply find in all Greece, all Asia, aye, or all the 
earth. And now make way,” putting back the sur- 
rounding company, and leading Theon by the arm to 
the upper end of the table.’ “ Behold the king of the 
feast.” 

“ That is, if you are the queen,” said the intoxicated 
youth. 

“ Oh, certainly,” placing herself by his side, “ I never 
refuse consequence, whenever I can get it.” 

“ Whenever you can take it, you mean,” said the 
master, laughing. 

“ And is not that every where ?” said Hermachus, 
bowing to the fair girl. 

“ Yes, I believe it is, A pretty face, my friends, may 
presume much ; a wilful nature may carry all things 
I have both to perfection ; have I not ?” 


103 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


<• Praise to Venus, and the Graces,” said Leontium ; 
“ our sister has brought a heart as gay from the college 
of Pythagoras, as she took into it.” 

“ To be sure ; and did you expect otherwise ? Psha ! 
you philosophers know nothing of human nature. I 
could have told you before this last experiment, that hu- 
mour lies in contrast, and that a wag will find more sub- 
ject in a synod of grave sages than a crew of laughing 
wits. You must know,” turning to Theon, “ I have 
' been on a visit to a wise man, a very wise man, who has 
followed from his youth up the whim, and all very wise 
men have whims, of restoring the neglected school of 
Pythagoras to its pristine greatness. Accordingly, he 
has collected and brought up some dozen submissive 
youths to his full satisfaction ; for not one of them dare 
know his right hand from his left, but on hi3 master’s 
authority, doubly backed by that of the great founder. 
They have, in short, no purse of their own, no time of 
their own, no tongue of their own, no will of their own, 
and no thought of their own. You cannot conceive a 
more perfect community. One more virtuously insipid, 
more scientifically absurd, or more wisely ignorant.” 

“ Fie, fie, you giddy girl,” said the master, smiling 
while he tried to frown. 

“ Giddy, not at all. I am delivering grave matter of 
fact story.” 

“ And we are all ear,” said Hermachus, “ so pray let 
us have the whole of it.” 

“ The whole ? nay, you have it already. An abode 
of the blessed ; a house with twelve bodies in* it, and 
one brain to serve them all.” 

‘ Why,” replied Hermachus, u I believe you have a£ 
home some hundred bodies in the same predicament” 

“ To be sure ; and so I told the sage Pythagorean* 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS- 


109 


when he looked so complacently on his eleven pieces ol 
mechanism, and assured him that were it not for me, 
there would not be a single original in the garden, save 
the master. I assure you, father, I gave just as mattei 
of fact a description of your household, as I now do of 
the old Pythagorean’s. And, a most singular coinci- 
dence, I remember he cried, 1 Fie, fie,’ just as you did 
now. Once more, it was a most perfect household ; 
with the men, all peace, method, virtue, learning, and 
absurdity ; with the women, all silence, order, ignorance, 
modesty, and stupidity.” 

“ And pray, sister,” said Metrodorus, “ what mada 
you leave a society that afforded such rich food to yous 
satire ?” 

u Because, brother, the richest food cloys the fastest. 
I passed three days to my perfect satisfaction ; a fourth 
would have killed me.” 4 

“ And your friends too,” said the philosopher, shaking 
his head. 

“ Killed them. They never knew they had life, till 1 
found it out for them. No, no, I left sore hearts behind 
me. The master indeed — ah, the master ! poor man, 
shall I confess it ? Before I left the house, he caught 
one of his pupils looking into a mirror with a candle, 
heard that another had stirred the fire with a sword, 
and oh ! more dreadful than all, that a third had swal- 
lowed a bean.* If I could but have staid three days 
longer, I might have wound my girdle round the necks 
of the whole dozen, brought them on my back, and laid 
them at the feet of Epicurus.” 

“ And what said the master, all this time ?” said Le- 
ontium. 

* Alluding to the whimsical superstitions of Pythagoras, or, perhaps 
it were more 4ust to say, of his followers. 

10 


110 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


“Said he? what said he? umph ! I never heard what 
he said, for I was reading what he felt.” 

“ And what felt he ?” asked Hermachus. 

“ Just what you have felt — and you too,” looking at 
Polyoenus. “ Aye, and you also, very sage philoso- 
pher ;” and turning short round to Theon, “ what you 
have to feel, if you have not yet felt — that I was vastly 
witty, vastly amusing, and vastly beautiful.” 

“ And do you think,” said the Gargettian, “ when we 
feel all this, we can’t be angry with you ?” 

“ Nay, what do you think ? But no, no, I know you 
all better than you know yourselves. And I think you 
cannot , or if you can , ’tis as the poet, who curses the 
muse he burns to propitiate. Oh philosophy ! philoso- 
phy ! thou usest hard maxims and showest a grave 
face, yet thy maxims are blit words, and thy face but a 
mask. A skilful histrion, who, when the buskin is off, 
paint, plaster, and garment thrown aside, stands no 
higher, no fairer, and no more mighty, than the young- 
est, poorest, and simplest of thy gaping worshippers. 
Ah, friends ! laugh and frown ; but show me the man, 
the wisest, the gravest, or the sourest, that a bright pair 
of eyes can’t make a fool of.” 

“ Ah, you proud girl,” said Hermachus, “ tremble ! 
remember, the blue-eyed Sappho died at last for a 
Phaon.” 

“ Well, if such be my fate, I must submit. I do net 
deny, because I have been wise hitherto, that I may not 
turn fool with the philosophers, before I die.” • 

“ ¥/ hat an excellent school for the rearing of youth,” 
said the master, “'the old Pythagorean must think mine.” 

“ Judging from me as a specimen, you mean. And 
trust me now', father, I am the best. Do I not practise 
what you preach ? What you show the way to, do I 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


Ill 


not possess? Look at my light foot, look in my laugh- 
ing eye, read my gay heart, and tell — if pleasure be not. 
mine. Confess, then, that I take a shorter cut to the* 
goal than your wiser scholars, aye, than your wisest self. 
You study, you lecture, you argue, you exhort. And 
what is it all for ? as if you could not be good without 
so much learning, and happy without so much talking. 
Here am I — I think I am very good, and I am quite 
sure I am very happy ; yet I never wrote a treatise in 
my life, and can hardly listen to one without a yawn.” 

“ Theon,” said Epicurus, smiling, “ you see now the 
priestess of our midnight orgies.” 

“ Ah ! poor youth, you must have found the garden 
but a dull place in my absence. But have patience, it 
will be better in future.” 

“ More dangerous,” said Polycenus. 

“ Never mind him,” whispered Hedeia, in the Corin- 
thian’s ear — “ he is not the grave man that a bright 
pair of eyes cannot make a fool of. This is very odd,” 
she continued, looking round the board. 11 Here am I, 
the stranger, and one too half drowned, charged with 
the entertaining of this whole learned society.” 

u Nay, my girl,” said the master, “ thou hadst need to 
be whole drowned, ere your friends might secure the 
happiness of being listened to.” 

“ Indeed, I believe it’s true ; and considering that the 
greatest pleasure of life is the being listened to, I wonder 
how any one was found to pick me out of the water. 
The Corinthian, to be sure, did not know what he saved; 
but that the master should wet his tunic in my service, 
is a very unaccountable circumstance. Is there any rea- 
son for it in philosophy ?” 

11 1 am afraid none.” 

1 Or in mathematics?” turning to Polycenus. “Now, 


112 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


just see there a proof of my argument. Can any man 
look more like wisdom, or less like happiness ? This 
comes of,' diagrams and ethics. My young Corinthian, 
take warning.” 

1 " I wish we could fix you to a diagram,” said Leon- 
tium. 

“The Graces forefend ! and why should you wish it? 
Think you it would make me wiser ? Let Polyoenus 
be judge, if I am not wiser than he. I admire the dif- 
ferent prescriptions that are given by different doctors. 
The wife of the good Pythagorean recommended me a 
distaff.” 

“ Well,” said Hermachus, “ that might do equally.” 

“ Pray, why don’t you take one yourself?” 

“ I, you see, am busy with philosophy.” 

“ And so am I, with laughing at it. Ah, my sage 
brother, every man thinks that perfection, that he is 
himself — that the only knowledge that he possesses — 
and that the only pleasure that he pursues. Trust me, 
there are as many ways of living as there are men, and 
one is no more fit to lead another, than a bird to lead a 
fish, or a fish a quadruped.” 

“ You would make a strange world, were you the 
queen of it,” said Hermachus, laughing. 

“ Just as strange, and no stranger, than it is at pre- 
sent. For why? I should take it as I found it, and 
leave it as I found it. ’Tis you philosophers, who would 
rub and twist, and plague and doctor it, and fret your 
souls out, to bring all its heterogeneous parts, fools, wits, 
knaves, simpletons, grave, gay, light, heavy, long-faced 
and short-faced, black, white, brown, straight and crook- 
ed, tall, short, thin and fat, to fit together, and patient 
reflect each other, like the acorns of an oak, or the modest 
wives and helpless daughters of the good citizens' of 


A PEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


113 


Athens ; ’tis you, I say, who would make a strange 
world, were you kings of it — you who would shorten and 
lengthen, clip, pull, and carve men’s minds to fit your 
systems, as the tyrant did men’s bodies to fit his bed.” 

“I grant there’s some truth, my girl, in thy nonsense,” 
said the master. 

“And I grant that there is not a philosopher in Athens, 
who would have granted as much, save thyself. You 
will find, my young hero,” turning to Theon, “ that my 
father philosophizes more sense, that is, less absurdity, 
than any man since the seven sages ; nay ! even than 
the seven sages philosophized themselves. He only 
lacks to be a perfectly wise man” 

“ To burn,” said the master, “ his books of philoso- 
phy, and to sing a tune to thy lyre.” 

“ No, it shall do to let me sing a tune to it myself.” 
She bounded from the couch and the room, and return- 
ed in a moment, with the instrument in her hand. 
“ Fear not,” she said, nodding to the sage, as she lightly 
swept the chords, “ I shall not woo my own lover, but 
your mistress.” 

“ Come, Goddess I come ! not in thy power, 

With gait and garb austere, 

And threatening brow severe, 

Like stem Olympus in the judgment hour ; 

But come with looks the heart assuring, 

Come with smiling eyes alluring, 

Moving soft to Lydian measures, 

Girt with graces, loves, and pleasures, 

•• Bound with Basilea’s zone. 

Come, Virtue ! come ! in joyous tone 
We bid thee welcome to our hearth, 

For well we know,, that thou alone 
Canst give the purest bliss of earth.” 

“ No thanks, no thanks. I shall take my own re- 
ward,” and stealing behind Epicurus, she threw her 

10 * 


114 


A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS. 


white arms round his neck, and laid her cheek on his 
lips. Then rising, “ Good dreams be with you,” and 
waving round her hand, and throwing a smile on Theon, 
vanished in an instant. The youth saw and heard no 
more, but sat as in a dream, until the party divided. 

<e Have a care,” whispered the master, as he followed 
him into the vestibule. “ Cupid is a knavish god ; he 
can pierce the hearts of others, and hold a shield before 
his own.” 


END OF PART I. 







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